Turn Old into New: Moving to Elixir Feature by Feature - Anita Ludermann | ElixirConf EU

[CodeSync]

Turn Old into New: Moving to Elixir Feature by Feature - Anita Ludermann | ElixirConf EU 2025

Turn Old into New: Moving to Elixir Feature by Feature - Anita Ludermann | ElixirConf EU 2025

This talk was recorded at ElixirConf EU 2025. If you’re curious about our upcoming event, check https://elixirconf.eu

Abstract:
It’s 2022 and our software feels like 1999. Our developer pace is fine but the habitat is crumbling, the technology is outdated. So in January 2023, we took the plunge and started building the new town over in Elixir Land.
In this talk, we share our approach to the technology shift and how we integrate this long-term goal into our business as usual, where we focus on modern software engineering with small incremental steps. We’ll take a look at the challenges we have faced and are still facing, some of which are: communicating between old and new system, shifting to functional programming, making existing data usable in Ecto, building bridges and shifting traffic and last but not least doing this all without the user noticing. We’ll also take a look at a real-life feature that went from ugly duckling to shiny new with the help of the strangler fig pattern.

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