Written by Brook Schaaf

We at FMTC are thankful for each other, our subscribers, and our colleagues in the larger affiliate ecosystem. This year, we are also thankful to be rid of our legacy data processing system. Have you perhaps heard of software worst practices? Old FMTC was practically a case study: 

  • Lots of spaghetti code – apparently the longer, the better. 
  • Comments were lacking, to say the least. Sometimes hundreds of lines of code would have none…then a command like “run_parser();” with a comment like “// Run the parser.” Not exactly helpful.
  • Repetitive names like $array, $return, $temp, and $temp2 conveyed nothing about the variable’s purpose (with no comments, of course). 
  • Random dates were assigned in various time zones, requiring endless corrections.
  • The same function would be copied, pasted, and altered in multiple places instead of having the same function used everywhere. 
  • References and email send-tos were hardcoded all over the place, including in the aforementioned duplications of the same functions. 
  • There were mystery error messages sent at random times with no information about what the error was trying to report, such as “The parser failed.” 

In recent years, we have moved away from this seat-of-the-pants coding to a proper agile process with consistently used variables and comments, single-use functions, and proper documentation. We write user stories, assign story points, and assess risks. Our manual and automated testing is thorough. Our planning, coding, and retrospect-ing are completed in sprints – this is admittedly more time-consuming but much more effective and scalable. 

To fix this literally decades-old code, we had to not only upkeep our legacy software while building the new stack but also build and maintain a syncer between the two, which led to many a slowdown. We even had a name for this: the “legacy sigh.” 

Now, with legacy in the rearview mirror, we hope that you will join us in breathing a new kind of sigh – one of relief.

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