Comments on: Don’t refactor on a Friday afternoon!

By: Josh Nursing

Josh Nursing — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:55:14 +0000

Generally, refactoring or optimization should be the last thing you do.

If you have lots of programming experience, then some optimized constructs should come immediately, but otherwise you should concentrate on writing code which works.

Also, if you’ve spent enough time doing the functional specs and the design, you’d not need that much refactoring.

By: Chris Lamothe

Chris Lamothe — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:55:19 +0000

macournoyer is right, the examples I listed weren’t necessarily the most productive ones. I’ve updated the post as a result. On the other hand, Friday afternoon seems to be ideal for posting on one’s blog.

By: Darin Kadrioski

Darin Kadrioski — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:32:15 +0000

In communist Russia, code refactors *you*!

By: macournoyer

macournoyer — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:30:45 +0000

Hey Chris,

Although I agree you should not start any big refactoring on friday (or anything big at all), I think friday is the perfect time to fix the little things that you told yourself you’d do later but never did.

Like refactoring that each or times block to inject, fixing the html in views. Things that just make your code looks cool.
Or maybe adding some tests breaking existing code.
Just really tiny refactoring that ease the mind are fun and help you leave the office with a great sense of “devoir accompli”.

By: heri

heri — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 19:50:51 +0000

this is funny. i picture you cursing and doing reverts with svn right now