On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Michael G Schwern wrote:
> Refactoring is simply the automated alteration of code without
> effecting its purpose. A simple example would be reversing the order
> of arguments in a subroutine. A refactoring tool would be able to do
> this for you automatically and in all code which uses that subroutine.
> Handy. It does this by defining a set of simple operations which a
> refactoring tool must be able to perform. From those simple
> operations, it can do much more complicated things.
Actually, I don't think that refactoring as a concept has anything to do
with tools. Refactoring is simply the concept that sometimes you need to
fix code that ain't broken. In other words, sometimes you have to do some
sort of redesign in order to make future development easier, not because
there's a bug to be fixed.
Refactoring tools simply help you do some of these things more easily.
-dave
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