Chapter 2Principles in Refactoring

The example in the previous chapter should have given you a decent feel of what refactoring is. Now you have that, it’s a good time to step back and talk about some of the broader principles in refactoring.

Defining Refactoring

Like many terms in software development, “refactoring” is often used very loosely by practitioners. I use the term more precisely, and find it useful to use it in that more precise form. (These definitions are the same as those I gave in the first edition of this book.) The term “refactoring” can be used either as a noun or a verb. The noun’s definition is:

Refactoring (noun): a change made to the internal structure of software to make it easier to understand and cheaper to modify without ...

Get Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.