

Study finds that refactoring doesn’t improve code quality - louthy
http://www.itworld.com/article/2891140/study-finds-that-refactoring-doesn-t-improve-code-quality.html

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codeordie
I think it really depends on the initial state of the code, and on who is
doing the refactoring.

If this code base was in good shape to start with, this is probably just
illustrating that there is a point of diminishing returns on refactoring.

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cjfont
Something about this study feels contrived. The size of the project makes a
big difference, and it seems that the study focused primarily on making the
code less linear and more abstract (adding polymorphism, etc.) in cases where
the overwhelming benefit is seen in huge projects involving many developers. I
don't feel that was even close to being the case here.

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cripes
Dumb study, IMO. Often the value of refactoring is to promote re-use of the
code (generally by adding flexibility), but that comes at the cost of some
additional complexity. I don't see that any of their metrics measure that. But
I guess the lesson of the paper is, don't refactor for the sake of
refactoring, which should be obvious.

