We interviewed Kris, the mind behind the challenge of merging old and new codebases, all while keeping the original app running and introducing new features in modern technologies.
Kris shared his insights into the dilemma they faced: the outdated code structure and methods made it increasingly difficult to add new features, which was a key aspect of the business. The most hindering were the lack of real-time communication between services and the absence of dynamic data exchange.
Kris recognized that continuing with the current codebase would discourage developers from joining the project, and the growth of the business required frequent releases of new features. Finding a solution that addressed all these concerns was essential for the overall success of the product. Kris explained that the end solution was a compromise - the team decided to create a new project and merge it with the old code:
"New features would be built into the new instance, using new technologies, and gated together with the old system."
This allowed for back-and-forth communication between apps. For backend technologies, it’s quite a standard thing to do; the communication on the frontend side was more of a challenge and required an additional unification of the UI. A few months later, the compromise solution proved to be effective with minimal sacrifices.
Kris expressed their satisfaction with the outcome: "Client accepted the investment of time into building the 'old app-new app' bridge. Thanks to this, we were very effective in building new features using the newest technologies, making the app future-proof. We never had to stop the development to do a full rewrite, which can cause huge losses for the business, sometimes even breaking the product altogether. There is still much refactoring that we need to do, but we do it step by step while the business can focus on growth.
Looking back now, I think there were no other alternatives. And today, because of effective communication and the use of new code, we can release new feature packs five times faster than we used to (down to 3 months, compared to 1.5 years)!"
