/via http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2018/11/26/if-its-not-broken/ Funny cartoon, but the whole " ”, thing is a bit far-fetched, right You’d probably fix that typo without thinking twice about it, right? Don’t refactor craetionDtae Wellllll, maybe not. After all, this might actually be something that is exposed to users (it’s in the API. Yay), so you need to refactor this the documentation, but that’s OK, you can do that, right? and Wellllll, maybe not. Because, now that you look, you notice that you’ve got sets of typos, and , which means that refactoring means that you need to update of these in the code the docs, so now it’s things that need to be changed, but it’s ok, you’ve got that, you can do it, right? two craetionDtae craetionDate both and 4 Wellllll, maybe not. Because, now that you really look, you realize that also exists as (because, you to pluralize the array, didn’t you?) and (because you forgot that already existed), and now stuff has grown exponentially, and you’re not really sure that the refactoring won’t f**k with the other names, and it’s all just too much now. craetionDate craetionDates had craetionDateForUser craetionDate And that’s the reason you didn’t go ahead with refactoring it, right? real Wellllll, maybe not. In reality, it’s probably just that one typo, and nothing else. However, And, because of that, you’re probably not going to actually do anything, and will live on forever in your code.( ) craetionDtae you don’t know! craetionDate And, a couple of years from now, when you’re long gone, nobody else will refactor it because they don’t know either, and assume that you probably had a reason for this… ( This article also appears on my blog )

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The Perils of Refactoring

Too Long; Didn't Read

Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya

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The Perils of Refactoring

Too Long; Didn't Read

Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya

About Author

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN...

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