Kill It with Fire

We build our computer systems the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins.

—Ellen Ullman

Introduction

In 1975, renowned physicist David L. Goodstein published his book States of Matter with the following introduction:

Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics.

This is a book about how to run legacy modernizations, a topic many software engineers regard as slow-moving career suicide, if not the prologue to a literal one. This book is for people who work at large organizations with aging technology, but it is also a book for people who work ...