Programming Microsoft® Visual C#® 2008: The Language

Refactoring

Most, if not all, applications evolve. They sometimes require local or even global changes. During the lifetime of an application, considerable time is spent re-engineering, usually with the objective of improving the code. This sometimes starts as early as the development phase and accelerates as the application matures. This includes—but is not limited to—renaming variables, moving code into methods, changing method signatures, and redesigning classes. Finding and changing a variable in a software system that spans dozens of source files can be challenging. Another task that can be difficult is changing the signature of a commonly used method. When you do this, you must locate and change method calls throughout the application. However, ...