identifying code improvements

Question

We've just gone through a pretty major system rewrite and I have been asked to find and identify areas of the code that have been improved. as a way to justify to the customer that the effort we've spent was worthwhile. Identifying the areas isn't really the hard part but I'm struggling with how to best present this information. Any suggestions on this, or if anyone ahs done something similar in the past would be appreciated.

Answer 1

It depends on the customer: is the customer technically-minded? Are they internal or external? How much detail do they want? Were you asked to rewrite, and if so by whom and for what reason?

Answer 2

In effect, this is a reduction of your technical debt. All of the benefits you would normally receive from that sort of effort will also apply here. Some of the effects will be forward-looking. For example:

• Reduced defect rate as a result of better, clearer APIs.
• More rapid development time (and lower costs) because interfaces are easier to test and have fewer integration points.
• Easier to maintain old code, because the layers they depend on will now be cleaner and freer of cruft.

Some of them will be immediate, however:

• Faster build because there's less cruft.
• Identification of bugs that wouldn't have been found until production because unit testing these areas was too hard.
• Better separation of layers and concerns.

The degree to which these sorts of benefits apply will, of course, be specific to your project and its code base.

Answer 3

Since it is for non technical people I would suggest Bar and Pie charts. Nothing helps non technical people grasp complex subjects like a big colorful chart.