Continuing on our conversation about large-scale transformations, I want to talk about change-harvesting’s “bias for action” and tell you a weird thing I did in kontentment the last couple of days. Change-harvesting takes the stance that our most reliable strategy for change is a highly iterative process of act-look-think, in roughly equal proportions, repeated in […]
Large-Scale Transformation and the Bias for Action Read More »
Large-Scale Refactorings — given the recent refactoring-related muses, a respondent asked me to talk about large or larger scale refactoring work. (I love it when people’s questions trigger my writing. Please do ask these things.) First things first, “large scale refactoring” is really a colloquial expression, a shorthand we sometimes use, but in my experience
Large-Scale Refactorings Read More »
Another small second-order refactoring for you today. I call it “narrow the question”. If you’re asking an object for data, ask for exactly what you want to know, instead of what you’d need to compute what you want to know. A very simple example: the PlayerView wants to disable/enable some of its controls when the
Second-Order Refactoring: Narrow The Question Read More »
As a hardcore user of TDD and refactoring, there are a number of what I think of as “second tier” refactorings that I use quite frequently. In one’s first intro to refactoring, one sees a lot of "rename", "re-order", "inline", and "extract". These are pretty potent tools, don’t get me wrong, but I think of
Second-Order Refactoring: Swap Supplier and Supply Read More »
A respondent asks, "Are you always able to practice what you preach? I don’t mean intentionally dropping but unintentionally as your mind is sloppy. I have great difficulties in applying 100% of my "knowledge" 100% of the time." Sometimes questions open up huge areas with lots of issues and subtexts and angles, and this is
How I Work – Preaching And Practicing Read More »
Refactoring Pro-Tip: When I’m scanning, I’m not just reading fast, I’m feature-detecting, something the unconscious part of me is very good at doing, especially when the code helps. Part of the made, the making, and the maker as a guiding theme for me is the idea of "leaning in" to the strengths of my maker
Refactoring Pro-Tip: Scanning Isn’t Just Fast Reading Read More »
Refactoring Pro-Tip: I optimize my code for scannability, readability, and writeability in that order. I won’t argue my case in detail, there’s a video if you’d rather watch me make it instead of reading it, and I’ll just sketch the case briefly here in the muse. http://geepawhill.org/optimizing-a-program-and-programming/ When I’m coding, I notice that I spend
Refactoring Pro-Tip: I Optimize Scannability, Then Readability, Then Writability Read More »
Refactoring Pro-Tip: When I tackle a long method, the first thing I do is make my local variables maximally local. Consider this psuedo-code. It’s basic stuff, I’m betting virtually any geek can read it, but if not, lemme know. longMethod( int y ) { int x; x = 0; // … // IRRELEVANCY #0: 87
Refactoring Pro-Tip: Making Local Variables Maximally Local Read More »
Refactoring Pro-Tip: I use naming, isolation, and noise-filtering as strategies to keep the coder’s intention at my fingertips. (I’m actually jonesing to write some geeky material in this series, but I’ve got one more of these pesky abstract philosophy things before I can get there.) First, a silly line from a silly movie, Airplane, which
Refactoring Pro-Tip: Naming, Isolation, and Noise-Filtering Read More »
Refactoring Pro-Tip: The triggering events for refactoring vary, but the reason we refactor at all is the same each time, regardless of occasion: we refactor to enable change. The most obvious and direct occasion for a refactoring is this: I want to add new functionality and preserve old functionality, and it will be easier to
Refactoring Pro-Tip: Refactor to Enable Change Read More »
