Clean Code Cookbook

Chapter 1. Clean Code

When Martin Fowler defined refactoring in his book Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, he showed the strengths and benefits as well as the reasons behind refactoring. Fortunately, after more than two decades, most developers know the meaning of refactoring and code smells. Developers deal with tech debt on a daily basis and refactoring has become a core part of software development. In his foundational book, Fowler used refactorings to address code smells. This book walks through some of these in the form of semantic recipes to improve your solutions.

1.1 What Is a Code Smell?

A code smell is a symptom of a problem. People tend to think the presence of code smells is proof that the whole entity needs to be taken apart and rebuilt. This is not the spirit of the original definition. Code smells are simply indicators of improvement opportunities. A code smell doesn’t necessarily tell you what is wrong; it is telling you to pay special attention.

This book’s recipes provide some solutions to those symptoms. Like with any cookbook, recipes are optional and code smells are guidelines and heuristics, not rigid rules. Before applying any recipe blindly, you should understand the problems and evaluate the cost and benefits of your own design and code. Good design involves balancing guidelines with practical and contextual considerations. 

1.2 What Is Refactoring?

Going back to Martin Fowler’s book, he gives two complementary definitions:

Refactoring ...