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Re: Re: There's a level in Hell reserved for ________

by chromatic (Archbishop)
on Feb 28, 2003 at 17:31 UTC ( #239487=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??

in thread There's a level in Hell reserved for ________

... people who insist that you need to refactor existing, working and less-than-completely-ugly code instead of writing those important missing bits, just because, well, you have to refactor your code after all, don't you? it's just hip and shows how great a programmer you are!

Done properly, supported with unit tests, as part of a disciplined schedule of writing simple, test-driven code, it's only the best way I know of to produce code that can be changed as easily as possible in the future.

Re^3: There's a level in Hell reserved for ________
by adrianh (Chancellor) on Feb 28, 2003 at 17:47 UTC

    Amen. I always think about it as pre-emptive maintainance.

    Of course, if you only have one day to implement feature X you implement feature X rather than refactor existing code.

    However, the fact that you only have one day indicates larger project scheduling problems - exactly the sort of problems that unit tests, test-driven code and continual refactoring can help with.

by mowgli (Friar) on Feb 28, 2003 at 23:04 UTC

    "Done properly" is the key point here. ;) If that's the case, I do agree with you, too, but there are also people who simply rewrite their existing code just for the sake of doing so, transforming it from one state to another one that's different but not really more easily maintainable, easier to understand or showing any other quality that would justify the time they invested in doing it. And there are also bosses with at least somewhat pointy hair that use micromanagement to make *you* do that, even if they are otherwise quite reasonable to deal with. :)


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