Most dev teams “own” some code that they don’t really want to work with. However it got there, the code is scary but pretty stable but now requires updates. Perhaps your team draws straws to each time to figure out who is going to have to put on the metaphorical hazmat suit and deal with the problem. Or worse yet, your team relies on one developer to always do it and he or she is getting burned out and could leave at any minute.

Mike will share some techniques that will help you modify the code with confidence using a few core refactorings and characterization test.