Brent Haskins / Applied AI
Legacy modernization without a big-bang rewrite
Rewrite projects fail when politics and parity requirements stall releases for a year. Brent Haskins modernizes client apps by shipping one valuable workflow at a time—often with a new front end on existing APIs—so revenue keeps moving.
The rewrite died in committee when someone asked for feature parity with a fifteen- year-old admin nobody uses daily.
Asper takes modernization calls from teams who cannot pause revenue. The workable plan is narrower than “replace everything.”
Pick the bleeding path
Ask which workflow causes support tickets, churn, or manual Excel. Ship that on a new stack first—often Next.js or React against existing REST—while the old app stays for edge cases.
Martin Fowler’s strangler fig metaphor is old because it works: grow the new system around the old until the old is optional.
Parity traps
Parity with legacy is infinite. Document intentional gaps: “we are not rebuilding report X in v1.” Founders must sign that.
Auth and data boundaries
Migrate sessions carefully. Dual-write is risky; read-new/write-new with backfill is often safer with feature flags. Never leak legacy cookies into new subdomains without thought.
Measure adoption, not lines of code
If users revert to the old UI, your v1 missed the job. Watch task time and support volume, not GitHub churn.
Brent Haskins
/projects/asper — studio since 2019, 100+ deliveries across fintech, healthcare, SaaS. Blog: product studio ships code.
Modernization is a product roadmap with deadlines, not a architecture science fair.
FAQ
Questions people ask about this topic.
When is a strangler fig pattern better than a full rewrite?
Use strangler when core APIs still work but UX, mobile support, or deployment blocks growth. Ship a new path for the highest-value workflow, route a subset of users, measure completion rates, then expand. Full rewrites make sense only when security, compliance, or platform obsolescence force backend replacement—not when the UI merely looks dated.
What does Asper deliver on modernization engagements?
Asper pairs discovery with shipped increments: auth migration, new dashboard for one role, or public marketing site on a modern stack while admin stays legacy. Brent Haskins keeps direct senior involvement. Deliverables are repos, CI, and demos—not slide decks alone. See /projects/asper and case studies on the portfolio site.
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