Untangling legacy .NET, one system at a time.
Rock Paper Dev is a YouTube channel for the developer who inherited someone else's codebase. Practical, no-fluff video guides on understanding and maintaining legacy C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, and SQL Server systems — so you can change things without fear.
1// inherited this last month. it still works. do not touch.23public class SystemMap4{5 // where does this actually start?6 public string ConnectionString =7 "Server=PROD-SQL-01;Database=LegacyOrders;...";89 // 4,000 stored procedures. we have met.10 public void RunNightlyJob() =>11 db.ExecuteNonQuery("dbo.sp_NightlyRecalc");1213 // who deploys this? (the script is in a shared drive)14}
For the person who inherited the system nobody documents.
Every episode is a working note: what to look for, what it means, and what it actually takes to change something safely. No hype, no frameworks, no "in five minutes" — just the stuff maintainers actually need.
Practical, not academic
You don't need to know why it was built that way — you need to know how it behaves today and how to keep it running while you fix the thing you were paid to fix.
Short, watchable videos
Screen-capture walkthroughs of real patterns: reading old code, tracing a request through an ASP.NET app, following data through a stored procedure.
Little web utilities
Companion tools for the daily grind — parsers, checklists, and decoders that run entirely in your browser. Nothing leaves the page.
The episode list.
Live videos and Potential video topics. Planned videos are subject to change.
subscribe on YouTube ↗ — new episodes are announced there first.