Software Design X-Rays

Nature is exceedingly simple.

Isaac Newton

Chapter 2Identify Code with High Interest Rates

We’ve seen that prioritizing technical debt requires a time dimension in our code. Now you’ll learn how hotspots provide that dimension by letting you identify code with high interest rates on both the file and function levels.

We’ll put hotspots to work on a well-known codebase where we identify a small section of code, just 197 lines, as a specific initial target for improvements. You’ll learn how we can be confident that an improvement to those 197 lines will yield real productivity and quality gains. So follow along as we dive into how code evolves and explore a technique that will change how we tackle legacy code.