In a recent post to his site, Brandon Savage has a few helpful hints to keep in mind when you're refactoring your applications to make them easier to maintain (and possibly perform better) in the future.
The downtime [of this week] provides a perfect opportunity for the aspiring software developer to do the one thing they are always told there’s no time to do: make the code better for better’s sake. With few deadlines and plenty of free time, most developers can get a few hours of refactoring in to their code towards the end of the year. They can rearchitect sections that were implemented with haste in September; they can write tests for sections that were untested in April. Put another way, the “lost week” can be redeemed.
He has a few recommendations, each including their own brief summary:
- Test Everything First
- One Method, One Job (Also One Class, One Job)
- Don’t Be Afraid Of More Objects And Classes
- Remove Dead, Unused, Unnecessary or Old Code
- Document Your Code
Check out the full post for the summaries and links to other useful resources.