Can You Refactor Instead of Design?
Another area in which I think refactoring is of questionable value is as an alternative to up-front design. There's a school of thought that says up-front design can be minimized because you can always change the design as you go along through refactoring.[19] The proponents of XP are often portrayed as favoring refactoring over initial design.
[19] Ibid. Page 67.
This approach is fraught with pitfalls and unresolved issues. First, what happens if the coders happen not to be very good designers? Can refactoring save them? I doubt it. When XPers who've been tasked with designing a complex system turn out to be extremely bad designers, the word extreme suddenly takes on a whole new meaning. Second, how would one ...
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