Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.14
EAN: 9780201485677
ISBN: 0201485672
Label: Addison Wesley
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 464
Publication Date: July 23, 1999
Publisher: Addison Wesley
Studio: Addison Wesley

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Your class library works, but could it be better? Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code shows how refactoring can make object-oriented code simpler and easier to maintain. Today, refactoring requires considerable design know-how, but once tools become available, all programmers should be able to improve their code using refactoring techniques.

Besides an introduction to what refactoring is, this handbook provides a catalogue of dozens of tips for improving code. The best thing about Refactoring is its remarkably clear presentation, along with excellent nuts-and-bolts advice, from object expert Martin Fowler. The author is also an authority on software patterns and UML, and this experience helps make this a better book, one that should be immediately accessible to any intermediate or advanced object-oriented developer. (Just like patterns, each refactoring tip is presented with a simple name, a "motivation," and examples using Java and UML.)

Early chapters stress the importance of testing in successful refactoring. (When you improve code, you have to test to verify that it still works.) After the discussion on how to detect the "smells" of bad code, readers get to the heart of the book, its catalogue of more than 70 "refactorings"--tips for better and simpler class design. Each tip is illustrated with "before" and "after" code, along with an explanation. Later chapters provide a quick look at refactoring research.

Like software patterns, refactoring may be an idea whose time has come. This groundbreaking title will surely help bring refactoring to the programming mainstream. With its clear advice on a hot new topic, Refactoring is sure to be essential reading for anyone who writes or maintains object- oriented software. --Richard Dragan

Topics Covered: Refactoring, improving software code, redesign, design tips, patterns, unit testing, refactoring research and tools.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Required Reading
I'd advise people to ignore the negative reviews for the following reasons:

1) People now talk about specific refactorings so, like design patterns, you need to know the names.
2) It was never supposed to teach you good design. If you want to learn that there are good books out there (including by Craig Larman and Robert C. Martin).
3) Some of it is basic but you can ignore that stuff if you want to, and when your doing some of the more complicated refactorings they could well be useful.
4) As Martin Fowler points out you don't need to read it cover to cover, in fact he advises you use it as a reference.

What this does teach you is how to iteratively improve bad code, something every developer needs to be able to do. In any case its valuable to read about the code smells, the reasons for needing to do specific refactorings and to read the examples.

Also if you want more advanced concepts I'd recommend "Agile Software Development" by Robert C. Martin and "Refactoring to Patterns" by Joshua Kerievsky which both build on this work.

Rating:

- Who is this book aimed at ?
The best thing I can say about this book is it uses nice paper and looks good on the book shelf.

I have no idea who this book is aimed at !

If you are new to programming, I'd very much suggest getting a good OOD and learn to design your code properly from the outset. This is not to say refactoring is not of use, but this book does not really teach good design which would be far more useful than trying to evolve a design by refactoring. I'm actually uncertain what it does teach.

On the other hand, if you earn your living writing software - in all honesty if you don't already know this stuff you might be better off looking for another career.

It's all pretty basic, I mean "move method", "encapsulate field" and so on.

The cynic in me feels this was written solely for the author to make a name for himself by giving his names to techniques the rest of us have used for many years. Whilst I rate some of the authors online articles and even the other book I have by him is fairly useful - this refactoring book is not a good piece of work.

For those experienced software developers there is only one reason to own this book and that is because somebody is bound to use it to ask an interview question at a your next job interview and unless you know the name of the refactoring technique I'm sure nobody will believe you can actually do it !

Rating:

- Not sure whether it's worth it
Big fan of Martin Fowler books, but this one looks a bit dated now. A lot of the content is common sense and whilst it's not to say that everyone out there is doing it (we all know we should do it more), I'm not sure whether you need a such a book to tell you such obvious refactoring methods. If you're new to programming and you don't know anything regarding good style maybe this is for you, however there's other books I'd go for more (Effective Java, for example).

Rating:

- A catalogue of obvious ideas
I was disappointed with this book, especially given its previous reviews here. After reading a good technical book I like to feel that I've learned something that would've taken me months or years to figure out, but most of this book struck me as being already obvious to anyone with a few years' programming experience.

Don't get me wrong, if a method name is unclear I'm all up for renaming it to something better. But do I really need to look up how to do it in a catalogue (which the author says is the main purpose of the book)? Or call it something fancy like "refactoring"? I've deliberately chosen the simplest example of course, but most refactorings are not much more complex: moving a method into another object, splitting a temporary variable into two, replacing a conditional with polymorphism, etc. Only one is a non-obvious enough idea that it gave me the "ooo" feeling that GoF generates throughout (introduce null object), and even that has simple enough mechanics that it's not something I would need to refer back to.

Some of the prose chapters were interesting when they drifted away from the main subject (especially the chapter about automated tests), which is why I've given two stars. However, if you're a professional programmer who enjoys a good read but in practice is more concerned with what will push forward your career, on both counts your time is better invested elsewhere.

Rating:

- Read, Refactor And Ye Shall Reap The Rewards !!!
This book covers a very important topic that every OO developer should be using. I just couldn't put this book down.

I just wish I'd read this book sooner as it would have helped me considerably on a number of previous development projects.

Just order it right now.

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