Sometimes when a program undergoes consistent updates it can get messy, in cases like this it can be useful to refactor it. I’ve had a few experienced cleaning a program however I have never refactored an entire program. The developers over at refactoring guru luckily have a website dedicated to this subject.

Purpose for refactoring
When you refactor a program you are fighting something they call technical debt and create clean code. With clean code comes a few benefits including:
- Obvious for other programmers
- Doesn’t contain duplicate code
- Minimal number of classes and other moving parts
- Passing of all tests
- Easier and cheaper to maintain
What is technical debt?
“Technical debt” as a metaphor was originally suggested by Ward Cunningham using bank loans as an example.
You can make purchases faster If you get a loan from a bank however now on top of principal you have interest. and with time you can rack up so much interest that the amount of interest exceeds your total income, making full repayment impossible.
The same concept can be applied to code. Speeding up without testing new features will gradually slow your progress.
Some causes of technical debt include:
- Business pressure
- Lack of understanding the consequence
- Failing to combat the strict coherence of components
- Lack of tests, documentation, communication.
- Long-term simultaneous development in several branches
- Delayed refactoring
- Incompetence
So when should one refactor?
Refactoring guru comes up with a few instances on when to refactor.
- Rule of three:
- When doing something for the first time, just get it done.
- When doing something similar for the second time, cringe at having to repeat but do the same thing anyway.
- When doing something for the third time, start refactoring.
- Adding a feature:
- If you have to deal with someone else’s dirty code, try refactoring it first; Easier for future features.
- Fixing a bug:
- Clean the code and errors will discover themselves
- Code reviews:
- Last chance to tidy up the code
- Best to perform these reviews in pair with an author
We know when, but how?
Refactoring is done via a series of small changes, each making the existing code slightly better while leaving the program in working order.
Here is a checklist on refactoring done the right way:
- The code is cleaner
- There should not be new functionality
- All existing tests pass
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I found this website on refactoring to be really informative and would recommend refactoring guru as a starting point. The most important thing that I got out of this is that developers should always try to write clean code or clean code as its undergoing development. Unfortunately sometimes software development can be very time containing and its not always possible which is why refactoring is important.
From the blog Petraq Mele blog posts by Petraq Mele and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.






