SAD10 - Refactoring

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The Dark Art of Refactoring
Systems Analysis and Design
Michael Heron

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Introduction
 Refactoring is sometimes thought of as a vaguely ‘black art’ of
programming.
 That stems from a basic misunderstanding of what refactoring
is all about.
 Part of this impression comes from a sense of the subjectivity
that goes into refactoring.
 While it’s easy to identify code that is wrong, it’s less easy to
identify which is the ‘best’ out of bits of ‘good’ code.
 The ease at which a system can be refactored is influenced by
the way that system is designed.

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Refactoring and the Impact of
Change
 Refactoring is an ‘invisible’ action.
 If you do it right, no-one should know you’ve done anything at
all.
 Refactoring is not about adding extra functionality.
 It may be a precursor to this.
 Refactoring is not about fixing bugs.
 Bugs may be fixed as a consequence of it.
 Refactoring is about fixing the problems caused by code you
‘would have done correctly’ given the opportunity.

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Refactoring and the Impact of
Change
 Refactoring is highly dependent on the impact of change that
goes with your modifications.
 In object orientation, this is predicted by the visibility of your
methods and attributes.
 The benefit of techniques such as abstraction and
encapsulation can readily be seen when it comes time to
refactor code.
 Refactoring an abstracted, encapsulated method is easy.
 Refactoring a system with complex side-effects and distributed
processing is a nightmare.
 Refactoring allows us to redesign architecture in running
programs.

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The Aim of Refactoring
When we refactor, we’re looking to improve
the quality of the code.
 Remove dead code
 Make inefficient code more efficient
 Make code more readable
 Self-describing code is the best documentation you can
provide.
 Make code more maintainable.
When we refactor, we try to get the code
looking like it would have done, if we’d have
written it properly the first time.

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A Simple Example
 Consider the following simple class:
public class Example {
private int bing;
public int getValue() {
return bing;
}
public void setValue (int b) {
bing = b;
}
}
 Refactoring can be as simple as changing the name of a
variable to be more meaningful.

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A Simple (?) Example
 public class Example {
public int bing;
return bing;
}
bing = b;
}
}
 Depending on the impact of change, even changing a
variable name can be problematic.

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Impact of Change
 There’s a simple hierarchy we can follow when working out the
impact of change of refactoring:
 Private variables and methods have low impact
 Protected variables and methods have medium impact
 Public variables and methods have high impact.
 Impact of Change relates to the maintainability of your code.
 How much of your code do you have to change?
 As developers, we strive to ensure minimum impact of change.
 You need to labour under the assumption that if someone has
access to a method or variable, they have taken advantage of that.

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Impact of Change
 Structural elements of a system usually carry with them a high
impact of change.
 It’s usually safe to specialise, it’s usually not safe to generalise.
 In all cases, we want to refactor in such a way that our changes
have no impact on anyone else.
 Fellow developers, mainly.
 All of this relates to the code that we produce at the end of a
systems development project.
 But as a direct consequence is relates to our design.
 We don’t stop designing or analysing just because a system is
‘finished’

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Another Example
 Let’s say we have a method to which we need to add a
parameter – say we need getValue to accept an integer
parameter:
public class Example {
private int bing;
return bing;
}
bing = b;
}
}

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Another Example
 How do we do this? There are two real choices:
 Add the parameter to the method definition.
 High impact of change – every other class making use of
getValue will need to change.
 Add in an overloaded method.
 Low impact of change.
 However, there’s a trade-off here:
 Adding a parameter may require lots of code to change.
 Adding an overloaded method may reduce internal
consistency.

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Remit of Refactoring
Where does your remit for refactoring lie?
 It depends on how much of the code for which you
are responsible.
 This may extend over a whole program.
 It may extend over a handful of classes.
 You can unilaterally refactor only those elements of
the program for which you have responsibility.
There are few things more frustrating than
finding your programs no longer work
because of someone else’s refactoring…

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A Third Example
private int value;
public int makeDesposit (int value, int rate) {
if (value > 100) {
return -1;
}
else if (valid < 0) {
return -1;
}
else {
if (rate < 30) {
value = value * rate;
}
else {
value = value * rate;/2
}
}
}
return value;
}
}

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Code Aesthetics
 The aesthetics of your code are important.
 They are usually a hint at the maintainability.
 However, it’s important not to just discard
complicated code as needing total refactoring.
 Old code may not be ugly, it may be battle-scarred.
 However, as you gain in experience and
confidence as a developer, you can generally tell
where the bits of code needing attention lie.
 Everyone has their own way of doing this – you
might investigate the Wodehouse Method of
Refactoring for one interesting example.

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Code Aesthetics
 One way to improve the aesthetics is to break complicated
functionality out into separate methods.
 This fulfils a general rule of object oriented programming, in that
each method should have one responsibility only.
 Complicated and nested structures are usually a good warning
sign of the need to refactor.
 Your activity diagrams will help you understand this.
 Look for lots of loops, lots of branches.
 If you see complicated structures, seek to simplify them.
 Strive to reduce the cyclomatic complexity.

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Cyclomatic Complexity
 Cyclomatic complexity is a software metric, and is used to
determine how complicated a piece of code is.
 It’s computed using the flow of logic through the constituent
paths of a unit.
 A function, a class, or a whole system.
 The higher the complexity, the more complicated the code.
 The more complicated the code, the harder it is to modify.
 Think of your complexity as ‘the number of decisions made in a
piece of source code’
 It’s more complicated than that, but that’s good enough for now.

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A Third Example
public int value;
private boolean getValid (int value) {
if (value > 100 || value < 0) {
return false;
}
return true;
}
private int getRate (int rate) {
int rate;
if (rate > 20 && rate < 30) {
rate = value;
}
else {
rate = value / 2;
}
return rate;
}
public int makeDeposit (int value, int rate) {
int rate;
if (getValid (value) == false) {
return -1;
}
rate = getRate (rate);
value = value * rate;
return value;
}
}

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Some Common Structual
Refactoring Tasks
 Generalising classes.
 Specialising classes.
 Improving encapsulation.
 Lowering impact of change
 Merging subclasses into fields
 Extracting fields into subclasses
 Implementing interfaces
 Adding abstract classes
 Making better use of polymorphism.
 Reduce inconsistency.

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Some Common Internal
Refactoring Tasks
 Simplifying internal structures.
 Improving variable names.
 Simplifying logical comparisons
 Substituting one algorithm for another
 Consolidating conditionals
 Extracting functionality into separate methods.

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Refactoring and Test Driven
Development
 Refactoring introduces no new functionality.
 You can thus use the tests you have put in place previously.
 Having a comprehensive, full test-suite ensures that your
refactored code behaves identically to the previous code.
 The importance of that in a multi-developer environment cannot be
stressed enough.
 We’ve referred to test driven development in the past.
 We write the tests before we write the code, so that when we make
any change we can ensure the whole thing works.
 Refactoring doesn’t violate this rule.
 If it does, you’re not refactoring at all.

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When Do We Refactor?
Refactoring is an ongoing process we do all
the time.
 Yeah, right.
The ideal case is that we refactor our code
on a continual basis. The realities of life
dictate that we must prioritise.
 Generally, we refactor code that is actively getting
in the way.
 There’s also often a ‘wish list’ we keep as
developers of code that we regret…

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When Do We Refactor?
 We refactor when code ‘smells bad’
 Code is duplicated across locations.
 There are unjustifiable ‘god objects’
 When cohesion is too low
 When coupling is too high
 When people have been ‘too clever’ for their own good.
 http://www.soberit.hut.fi/mmantyla/BadCodeSme
llsTaxonomy.htm has a good list of ‘bad smells’

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Conclusion
 Refactoring is the process of looking back at old designs and
fixing them before they become problems.
 Preventative maintenance, in other words.
 You are going to make mistakes when you develop a system.
 Nobody is perfect.
 The ease with which you can fix those mistakes is going to be
based on the designs that you produce.
 Think of refactoring as ‘design band aids’.
 Bearing this in mind at the design stage can save much
heartache in the long run.

SAD10 - Refactoring

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