Re: Refactoring history and progress

Ron Jeffries wrote:
> Hello, Richard.  On Thursday, December 17, 2009, at 9:18:05 PM,
> you wrote:
> 
>> IMO, refactoring as a process/technique is as old as programming itself,
>> even if it wasn't called "refactoring" at the time.
> 
> I don't recall that. We did change our programs, often in small
> steps, but I don't recall the study of reversible
> behavior-preserving transformations.

It wasn't as rigorous as refactoring, but I did make structural changes 
with the intent of maintaining the behavior.  Perhaps Richard means 
something like that.

The advent of refactoring taught me to cleanly separate such structural 
changes from behavioral changes.  The clarity of intention has made a 
fundamental difference in the way I write software.

So, while in one sense I agree with Richard, in another I don't.

  - George

-- 
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   * George Dinwiddie *                      http://blog.gdinwiddie.com
   Software Development                    http://www.idiacomputing.com
   Consultant and Coach                    http://www.agilemaryland.org
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------



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