Barry A. Postma

Conference talk on modernisation (XConf Europe 2022)

Modernization: Taming the legacy and keeping the new house clean

Modernising a legacy estate is daunting and taking the first step is often the hardest: where do you start and how can you stay on track?
Too often we see modernisation leading to similar architectures being built, using newer technology, but without delivering the intended benefits. To escape the gravitational pull of legacy, we've learnt that it's important to have discipline and that taking an opposite approach can help to deliver value early and incrementally.
In this talk I will take you on the journey of one of our clients, where we sliced off a user journey from a large legacy estate, and share how we built the foundation for a modern architecture. I will share six guiding principles: three for the approach and three for the architecture, which can also help you to be set up for success.

Loft

Protect your privacy and against spam with dynamically created email aliases on a domain name you own. Receive email via Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) to synchronise it to a designated IMAP mailbox. More information in the readme file.

PostcodeAPI.NET

A popular .NET client library for integrating with the postcodeapi.nu post code database in the Netherlands. The API itself is a commercial offering by a 3^rd party, free accounts are available.

Signtool UI

A graphical user interface to easily sign executable and DLL content using the Signtool.exe provided in the Windows SDK. This tool works on Windows only. More information in the readme file.

Messaging Principles

A documented set of good practices to consider when building message-based integrations and better than no design at all. You may want to consider initiatives such as cloudevents or AsyncAPI these days, but these principles are still relevant.

Loft app

The Loft App is the dashboard app to Loft, a tool to receive email on dynamically created email aliases. This web app displays used email aliases, statistics and enables downloading of received messages. More info in the readme.
The app is not yet ready to use.

Telegram sticker set

An (outdated) collection of software- and web development logo's bundled as a sticker set for the Telegram messaging app.

Opulense

A self-hosted app for tracking personal financial net worth and growth of assets and liabilities over time. Still under private development, the project has been shelved a few times due to the amount of work required. The app is not yet ready to use.