Given that the GSOC Rails projects involve some ActiveRecord refactorings, doesn't this type of improvement make sense?
--dwf On Mar 8, 12:42 pm, Niels Ganser <[email protected]> wrote: > I realize us Rubyists don't necessarily think the classic works in the > field such as Fowler's "Refactoring" apply to our day-to-day coding in > their entirety but in this case I fully agree with Fowler when he says > "You don't decide to refactor, you refactor because you want to do > something else, and refactoring helps you do that other thing". > > I myself have had my faire share of frustration when browsing around in > the AR associations code and as anyone who has ever done more than a few > hours of programming knows confusion always – and I mean always! – leads > not only to more bugs but also hinders in adding features to the > confusing code. > > I'd argue those "odd bugs"Adam mentioned have already been there. Many > times. There is no *one* bug that shouts "I'm here because this code > needs to be refactored!", it usually is much more subtle than this. > Years of experience generally show though that the harder code is to > understand, the more buggy it will be. > > Now *if* there is fantastic test coverage and *if* someone is willing > and able (regarding skills and free time) to give it a shot, I say go > for it: Fork, refactor, push, and show us! > > IMHO there's never a better time to refactor than right *now*. Besides > yesterday of course.. > > Best, > Niels > > Pratik wrote: > >> More importantly, the added complexity created by importing all of the > >> collection logic and interface into a non-collection association class > >> just adds to rigidity and potential for odd bugs in the future. > > > Let's do this refactoring when that actually happens. > > >> What concerns me most about this is that resistance to cleaning up > >> code likely implies a lack of confidence in the test suite. > >> Considering how core associations are to Rails, and the not > >> insignificant amount of cruft in that code, there should be tests on > >> associations like fat kids on an ice cream truck. What are you > >> concerned the changes will break, given that all the tests pass? > > > There is no lack of confidence. But I'm not very much in favour of > > refactoring without any performance gains or any obscure bug fixes. > > Refactoring like these makes almost all the relevant patches in LH > > stale and screws up the history. I just don't think the patch in > > question here is worth that. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Core" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
