Starting a new job focused on brownfield application refactoring & Agile

Question

I am starting a new job on Monday. The company has a home grown enterprise case management application written in ASP.NET/VB.NET. They are attempting to implement an Agile development process. They have gone so far as to get two people Scrum Master certified and hire an Agile coach. They are currently focused on 6-9 months of refactoring.

My question is what are some good approaches/tooling given this environment for becoming familiar with the code base and being productive as soon as I hit the ground?

Answer 1

Congratulations on the new job!

Relax and keep your cool. Read something on Refactoring.

I guess, the process itself will make sure you are productive as long as you apply common sense :)

Answer 2

Great question!

I would say the first thing to do is get the daily scrums going. Your part in the scrum will be learning the code. It will provide you a way to ask questions and get a feel for who can help you learn the code.

Once you have that guy (or guys) picked out start pair programming with them. Let them drive but ask questions. You will be surprised how much you can pick up that way. Given their bend on Agile, that should be an easy sell. :)

Once you have that established, be sure to swap partners every so often so you get a feel for the enitre code base. Just sticking woth one guy who is doing one part won't give you a big picture but jumping between people will get you a better big picture view of the code.

Just my 2 cents. :) Good luck and have fun!!