You invented the same refactoring technique Michael Feathers suggests in his book[1]. You write tests to document the current state of the legacy software and then start slowly changing it.
Great book BTW, should be on a top10 must read list for software developers. (#1 will always be Peopleware[2])
Peopleware is great, but seeing that it was written more than 30 years ago, also completely pointless. All the advice that book gives is ignored by literally every leader I’ve ever met.
Our CIO was regaling us with the story about how they were going to change our office today, make it more open, fancy like Google or Facebook, free desk. But when I asked if they’d considered dealing with the noise issues we were having, no, no they hadn’t considered that.
It just blows my mind. I just really wanted to ask them what the hell they thought they were doing modifying the office layout without asking the people who need to work there.
Great book BTW, should be on a top10 must read list for software developers. (#1 will always be Peopleware[2])
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44919.Working_Effectivel... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67825.Peopleware