Introduction to Refactoring

Short Description
This report is written as an introduction to refactoring for those that have no knowledge of the area. It covers the basics of refactoring, a brief look at the history of refactoring and the meaning of the word “refactoring”. There are some examples on how different refactory-function work, what their preconditions are and what they do. It also takes a look at the use of software design patterns by “refactoring to patterns”. Last, but not least, it covers refactoring-tools and names a few examples of different tools available.

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Content
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Refactoring code has been done since people started programming. Cleaning up code is refactoring, making small changes to make a program faster or more memory e±cient is refactoring. However it is not until recently people started to discuss different techniques for it. The discussion began when Martin Fowler published his book on Refactoring1 in which he included the first basic refactoring patterns, and the field is getting larger as imperative programming is more and more replaced by OO. This is because of the high costs involving the pro- cess of creating new software from scratch and the factor that OO-programming produces code that is easier to use. People are starting to develop special tools for refactoring and try to make the refactoring-process as automated as possible, but that is a process that is going to take time to tune to perfection. There is a section on different tools and a little explanation on the theory behind them later on. Like always when it comes to programming people think different about how things should be done. The two major directions in this matter are “If it is working do not change it” and “Refactor everything you come across” aka refactor mercilessly. Most programmers land somewhere in between these two, refactoring at the same time they are fixing small bugs.
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