Circular Refactoring
Posted by Sergio
on 2009-08-14
One of these days I was chatting with Derik and we were talking about refactoring and when to stop refactoring. We thought it was funny (and embarrassing) how sometimes, after a few consecutive refactorings, we are back at the starting point.
This type of Circular Refactoring is a real productivity enemy. In our genuine desire to improve the code, and wishing to dive into an interesting task, we sometimes lose sight of the code history and the real need for this change. It reminds me a lot of this funny comment (second part).
How do you tell when you're being a victim of this variation of the premature optimization monster? Well, here's a start:
Top 10 signs you've fallen into circular refactoring
9 - Code gets eerily familiar by the minute.
8 - Your git repository doesn't seem to grow.
7 - Work feels too much fun to be real.
6 - Your code metrics trending charts look like Bart Simpson's hair.
5 - You're never breaking any of your unit tests after each change.
4 - You've created macros in the IDE to help with almost all the steps.
3 - You're refactoring your macros.
2 - Clippy is asking if you've heard about the "svn merge" command.
1 - TFS, on the other hand, still can't offer you much help.
0 - Your Find/Replace drop-downs seem to read your mind.
8 - Your git repository doesn't seem to grow.
7 - Work feels too much fun to be real.
6 - Your code metrics trending charts look like Bart Simpson's hair.
5 - You're never breaking any of your unit tests after each change.
4 - You've created macros in the IDE to help with almost all the steps.
3 - You're refactoring your macros.
2 - Clippy is asking if you've heard about the "svn merge" command.
1 - TFS, on the other hand, still can't offer you much help.
0 - Your Find/Replace drop-downs seem to read your mind.