Refactoring wishlist

Refactoring tools have made a big splash. They are now in the
top-level menu (along File, Edit) in most respectable IDEs. On one
hand, this is good news. On the other, we could have done more.

At every single refactoring workshop that I held in the past, somebody
inevitably asks the question: "Martin Fowler's catalog lists 90+
refactorings. More than 10 years after its publication, major IDEs
like Eclipse only automate about two dozen of those refactorings. When
are we going to automate the remaining refactorings?".

I would like to automate many more refactorings. This semester I have
the man-power to do this. I am teaching the Software Engineering
course at UIUC with 160 students. For the class project, each group of
4 students will implement a new refactoring in the Eclipse IDE.

Two kinds of refactorings are worth automating. First, refactorings
that you perform very infrequently, but are very tricky to get right.
Second, refactorings that you perform very frequently; you are not
frustrated because they are complicated, but because you have to do
them so often by hand.

For the class project we would target refactorings from the latter
category (simple, but frequent). What are some refactorings that you
wish we would automate?

best,
Danny

-- 
Danny Dig's homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/dig/www

Motto: "Success is not for the chosen few but for the few who choose"


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