🌅 Sunsetting Legacy technology

Retiring old parts of codebase should be planned and formally processed not when it starts to break and looks jaded but when its in good functioning condition. So think about end-of-life dates and how it should be communicated to users.

Often such changes are wrapped under vague goals like "modernizing" which does not set right expectations.

Apply a code tax to teams who still want to use and modify the code already marked for end-of-life. This will enforce migration to new debt-free architecture while time is still on your side.

It will provide strong incentive to prioritize refactoring, eventually remove the high maintenance old code when the deadline is reached.