This is a talk about how to approach development in an uncertain and changing environment.

The talk was relevant in 2024, but has become event more so, with the predicted breaking changes in version 26.

ERP systems used to be on-premise solutions with few connections to other systems. Today, ERP systems are in the Cloud, updated continuously and integrated to many other systems. They live in a constantly changing environment. This challenges how we approach the after-go-live. We go into maintenance mode. Now anything can go wrong anytime. API versions change, legislation changes, breaking changes are coming to the base app every five versions, other apps/extensions are competing on events ... We cannot trust this environment as we used to.

We used to test when a new version was installed. Now we need to test business critical functions and APIs frequently.

We need to have build-in robustness in our customizations. We need to require that our suppliers also have this robustness build-in.

We told customers that they never have to go through upgrade hell again, but did we tell them that they now are in maintenance mode?

We need to explain and sell this to our customers.

The talk is related to these two articles on my blog.
https://www.finnpedersenfrance.com/programming/2024/03/21/breaking-changes-bc26.html
https://www.finnpedersenfrance.com/programming/2024/03/21/maintenance-mode.html