[BangPypers] refactoring

[Sidu Ponnappa]

>
> This may not
>  be true with badly written or maintained systems, which is why
>  many people shudder at the thought of refactoring their code base.
>  In such houses the thinking is, "if it works, leave it alone", an attitude
>  that is the exact opposite of the refactor.
>
Actually, the book is pretty good at helping out with this as well. There's
this other book that I keep meaning to read called 'Working Effectively with
Legacy Code' that has been recommended to me quite strongly by several
people I respect.

> > 'No self respecting developer could function without having read the
> > > refactoring book'.
> >
> >
>  I just realized that I am not a self-respecting developer after reading
> this.
>  Will try to keep it that way by continuing to avoid this book...
>

I'm more worried that a perfectly good book and certain engineering
practices that I find hugely useful will be ignored either because of
sweeping, religious statements by zealots, or because a bunch of people have
made an industry creating buzzwords around otherwise sensible practices like
TDD, refactoring, or yes, even Agile. Just because they're buzzwords doesn't
mean they're useless. I'm sure 'goto free code' was once looked at in a
similar manner in the 1960s, but today everybody accepts that philosophy.

Best,
Sidu.

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Anand Balachandran Pillai <
abpillai at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 10:04 AM, Senthil Kumaran <orsenthil at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Dec 03, 2010 at 09:51:43AM +0530, Sriram Narayanan wrote:
> > > Please point me to any use of strong words against of what many of us
> > follow.
> >
> > That refactoring and that self-respect thing. The first is what many
> > practise, and second is a strong word. :)
> >
>
>  +1. Many practice "refactoring" without the "buzz" surrounding it.
>  Code reviews, rewrites etc are things software developers do daily
>  - it is part of their bread and butter. However "refactoring" as discussed
>  here is a more of a standardized process using tools and approaches
>  designed for it, with some little buzz added to the mix.
>
>  Refactoring assumes that the implementation of the code is not
>  closely tied with its interfaces. In other words, it assumes some amount
>  of separation of concerns which will allow to modify the inner guts
>  without changing the external behavior of the code. This may not
>  be true with badly written or maintained systems, which is why
>  many people shudder at the thought of refactoring their code base.
>  In such houses the thinking is, "if it works, leave it alone", an attitude
>  that is the exact opposite of the refactor.
>
>
> > I think, the thread got a bit digressed. You should share your
> > practises in the conferences and it would be well received by many.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Senthil
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> --Anand
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