Software Engineering Made Easy: A Comprehensive Reference Guide for Writing Good Code

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2025

M. GählerSoftware Engineering Made Easyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/979-8-8688-1386-3_8

8. Refactoring

Marco Gähler¹  

(1)

Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

 

Refactoring is the process of enhancing the structure of existing code without altering its functionality. In older codebases, this practice was often neglected due to the absence of tests that covered the code. Consequently, modifying the code was risky, as it could easily introduce bugs. As a result, the common approach was to avoid refactoring and instead add new features wherever it seemed feasible.

Refactoring Fundamentals

If you wait until you can make a complete justification for a change, you’ve waited too long. ...