Ever encountered dead codes and processes? I have been cleaning many of such dead codes and processes. Usually, these happens to system that have been around for more than 5 years. Dead codes and process are usually system features that users no longer required or understand. These are some quick approach to handle them for removal.
Happy Path Approach
When you upgrade an old system to a new one, you should first plot the happy path. In daily operations, 80% of the system usage are on happy path, 10% on exceptions and the rest are manual handling. Using happy path approach, your system migrates all the key essential functionalities. This way, you can also clean up the dead processes and its corresponding codes.
I Don’t Know
Users compartmentalise system usage in their thought processes. As times goes by, fanciful nice to have features are forgotten and languish in neglect. Querying uses on these features will get a response of “I don’t know”. As a rule of thumb, these features are considered “dead” and can be removed with no impact to existing system.
These dead codes and processes often results in degrades of system performance and unnecessary costs in support tickets. Thus, it is a good exercise to clean up dead codes and processes when you are upgrading your legacy system.
Danny Kwok 