41
Use the Mikado Method to do safe changes in a complex codebase - Change Messy Software Without Breaking It
(understandlegacycode.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
41 points (100.0% liked)
Programming
25831 readers
129 users here now
Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!
Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.
Hope you enjoy the instance!
Rules
Rules
- Follow the programming.dev instance rules
- Keep content related to programming in some way
- If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos
Wormhole
Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes, but you do need to be careful with what level you test at. Too high level and the tests may be slow, flaky, and difficult to focus onto small details. Too low level and they may just bake-in the existing implementation.
That was such a huge problem on my last job. Most of the unit tests just executed the code and didn’t really test anything and any time you changed the implementation everything broke.
Thankfully it was truly my last job. 😊