refactoring

refactoring

Posted Sep 15, 2004 2:05 UTC (Wed) by kevinbsmith (guest, #4778)
In reply to: refactoring by davidw
Parent article: How to Use ZenTest with Ruby (Linux Journal)

Refactoring is rarely about making the code smaller or faster. It's usually about making it "cleaner", as you say.

Without refactoring, almost any code base will rot over time. It will become more and more complex, and harder and harder to enhance or maintain.

Without refactoring, even code that was well-designed when it was first written (which is unfortunately rare) cannot evolve to take advantage of what the team learns over time. The design would remain needlessly frozen. Refactoring is really designing.

Sure, refactoring is just pushing code around. But the positive effects are huge.

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