When your code is nearly old enough to vote

WhenYour Codebase
Is Nearly Old Enough
ToVote
Denise Paolucci
Dreamwidth Studios - www.dreamwidth.org
Slides: www.slideshare.net/dreamwidth
Friday, January 16, 15

At time of fork:
• Perl 5.6
• Apache 1.3 (yes, in 2008!)
• BML (custom template language from 1996)
• Various Perl modules (usually outdated)

hic sunt dracones

Comments that don’t help
my $out_straight = sub {
# Hacky: forces text flush. see:
# http://zilla.livejournal.org/906
if ($need_flush) {
$cleaner->parse("");
$need_flush = 0;
}

Comments that don’t help
my $out_straight = sub {
# Hacky: forces text flush. see:
# http://zilla.livejournal.org/906
if ($need_flush) {
$cleaner->parse("");
$need_flush = 0;
}
(Six bug trackers and four owners ago.)

Workarounds for
outdated browsers
// let me explain this. Opera 8 does XMLHttpRequest, but not setRequestHeader.
// no problem, we thought: we'll test for setRequestHeader and if it's not present
// then fall back to the old behavior (treat it as not working). BUT --- IE6 won't
// let you even test for setRequestHeader without throwing an exception (you need
// to call .open on the .xtr first or something)

Workarounds for
outdated browsers
// let me explain this. Opera 8 does XMLHttpRequest, but not setRequestHeader.
// no problem, we thought: we'll test for setRequestHeader and if it's not present
// then fall back to the old behavior (treat it as not working). BUT --- IE6 won't
// let you even test for setRequestHeader without throwing an exception (you need
// to call .open on the .xtr first or something)
Current Opera: 26.0.1656.60 (Opera 8 released 2005)
Current IE: 11.0.12 (IE 6 released 2001)

Really old HTML
$ret .= "<FORM METHOD=POST>";
$ret .= LJ::form_auth();
$ret .= "<TABLE WIDTH=400><TR VALIGN=BOTTOM>";
$ret .= "<TD><IMG SRC="$LJ::IMGPREFIX/nerd_small.jpg" WIDTH=167 HEIGHT=169 HSPACE=2
VSPACE=2></TD>";
$ret .= "<TD><B><TT>command console.</TT></B>";
$ret .= "<P>welcome to the livejournal console. from here administrators can do
administrative type things. you will forget the commands, so there is a <A HREF=
"reference.bml">reference</A>.</TD>";
$ret .= "</TR>";
$ret .= "<TR><TD COLSPAN=2>";
$ret .= "<P><tt>enter commands:</tt><BR>";
$ret .= "<TEXTAREA NAME=commands ROWS=10 COLS=60 WRAP=OFF></TEXTAREA></TD></TR>n";
$ret .= "<TR><TD COLSPAN=2 ALIGN=RIGHT><INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="execute"></P></
TD></TR></TABLE></FORM>n";
return $ret;

Really old HTML
$ret .= "<FORM METHOD=POST>";
$ret .= LJ::form_auth();
$ret .= "<TABLE WIDTH=400><TR VALIGN=BOTTOM>";
$ret .= "<TD><IMG SRC="$LJ::IMGPREFIX/nerd_small.jpg" WIDTH=167 HEIGHT=169 HSPACE=2
VSPACE=2></TD>";
$ret .= "<TD><B><TT>command console.</TT></B>";
$ret .= "<P>welcome to the livejournal console. from here administrators can do
administrative type things. you will forget the commands, so there is a <A HREF=
"reference.bml">reference</A>.</TD>";
$ret .= "</TR>";
$ret .= "<TR><TD COLSPAN=2>";
$ret .= "<P><tt>enter commands:</tt><BR>";
$ret .= "<TEXTAREA NAME=commands ROWS=10 COLS=60 WRAP=OFF></TEXTAREA></TD></TR>n";
$ret .= "<TR><TD COLSPAN=2 ALIGN=RIGHT><INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="execute"></P></
TD></TR></TABLE></FORM>n";
return $ret;
(1999 called; they want their tables back)

Out of date special-
casing
# Catch misspellings of hotmail.com
if ($domain =~ /^(otmail|hotmial|hotmil|hotamail|hotmaul|hoatmail|hatmail|htomail).(cm|
co|com|cmo|om)$/ or
$domain =~ /^hotmail.(cm|co|om|cmo)$/)
{
return $reject->("bad_hotmail_spelling",
"You gave $email as your email address. Are you sure you didn't mean hotmail.com?");
}
# Catch misspellings of aol.com
elsif ($domain =~ /^(ol|aoll).(cm|co|com|cmo|om)$/ or
$domain =~ /^aol.(cm|co|om|cmo)$/)
{
return $reject->("bad_aol_spelling",
"You gave $email as your email address. Are you sure you didn't mean aol.com?");
}

Out of date special-
casing
# Catch misspellings of hotmail.com
if ($domain =~ /^(otmail|hotmial|hotmil|hotamail|hotmaul|hoatmail|hatmail|htomail).(cm|
co|com|cmo|om)$/ or
$domain =~ /^hotmail.(cm|co|om|cmo)$/)
{
return $reject->("bad_hotmail_spelling",
"You gave $email as your email address. Are you sure you didn't mean hotmail.com?");
}
# Catch misspellings of aol.com
elsif ($domain =~ /^(ol|aoll).(cm|co|com|cmo|om)$/ or
$domain =~ /^aol.(cm|co|om|cmo)$/)
{
return $reject->("bad_aol_spelling",
"You gave $email as your email address. Are you sure you didn't mean aol.com?");
}
80-90% of our new signups are from @gmail.com

Old bad decisions (that
were right at the time)
# remove the SvUTF8 flag. it's still UTF-8, but
# we don't want perl knowing that and messing stuff up
# for us behind our back in random places all over
# http://zilla.livejournal.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1037
foreach my $attr (qw(id subject text link author)) {
next unless exists $it->{$attr} && defined $it->{$attr};
$it->{$attr} = LJ::no_utf8_flag ( $it->{$attr} );
}

And more...

And more...
• Outdated modules

And more...
• Ancient JavaScript

And more...
• Massive duplication

And more...
• Massive duplication
• Bugs that had turned into features

Should you rewrite?

Upgrading Apache
BENEFIT COST
• Moving away from
software at EOL
• So much time. (circa 6
months to working
prototype)
• Security ﬁxes • New and exciting bugs
• Not having to
downgrade new installs
• But really, a no-brainer
• Easier to explain
• No longer horribly
ashamed of ourselves

Switch to Foundation
BENEFIT COST
• Modern framework • So many pages
• Responsive design
(better mobile)
• Changes to look/feel
(our users are picky)
• Better cross-browser • New and exciting bugs
• Easier to make
accessible
• Less individual
• Well documented
• No, seriously, SO
MUCH WORK
• Kill lurking old HTML • We’re still not done

The pros: will you...

• become more compatible with standards/
best practices?

best practices?
• make your code easier to install?

best practices?
• eliminate project-speciﬁc systems?

best practices?
• reduce reliance on institutional memory?

best practices?
• reduce reliance on institutional memory?
• beneﬁt your users or your team?

The cons: will you...

• lose a history of bugﬁxes or security ﬁxes?

• tie up too many of your people, or involve
too much retraining?

• be tied to something that might not last?

• need to fork/adapt a standard/module?

• need to fork/adapt a standard/module?
• not beneﬁt your users or your team?

The number one
question:

Will you ﬁnish it?

Future-prooﬁng

Future-prooﬁng
• Comment everything, in the code itself

Future-prooﬁng
• Be grep friendly

Future-prooﬁng
• Write task lists for your future self

Future-prooﬁng
• Write task lists for your future self
• Regularly install/compile from scratch

Thank you!
Denise Paolucci
Dreamwidth Studios - www.dreamwidth.org
Slides: www.slideshare.net/dreamwidth

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