Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

published

2012-09-23

rating

3

The interesting aspect of this book is that it attempts to break down the process of refactoring code into a set of refactoring operations that each consist of a sequence of mechanical steps that are guaranteed to preserve the semantics of the program. This is really interesting because it means that you can teach the computer how to refactor automatically, which is something that the book discusses towards the end. Most of the refactoring operations are pretty basic and any experienced programmer has probably done most of them, but not everyone thinks of refactoring in such a strict mechanical way. This book provides a perspective that may help programmers think of refactoring in a different way.