THE WHATIS.COM WORD-OF-THE-DAY August 14, 2003 refactoring ________________ SPONSORED BY: Microsoft
The Quick Guide to Windows Server 2003. Get the latest information on installation, new features and training. Click here! http://WhatIs.com/r/0,,17026,00.htm?microsoft ________________ TODAY'S WORD: refactoring See our complete definition with hyperlinks at http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci919168,00.html Refactoring is "the process of changing a software system in such a way that it does not alter the external behavior of the code yet improves its internal structure," according to Martin Fowler, the "father" of refactoring. The concept of refactoring covers practically any revision or cleaning up of source code. Fowler consolidated many best practices from across the software development industry into a specific list of "refactorings" and described methods to implement them in his book, "Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code." While refactoring can be applied to any programming language, the majority of refactoring current tools have been developed for the Java language. One approach to refactoring is to improve the structure of source code at one point and then extend the same changes systematically to all applicable references throughout the program. The result is to make the code more efficient, scalable, maintainable or reusable, without actually changing any functions of the program itself. In his book, Fowler describes a methodology for cleaning up code while minimizing the chance of introducing new bugs. In January 2001, automated refactoring tools began to appear in earnest, including the IntelliJ IDEA Java IDE (integrated development environment), the X-ref plug-in tool for the Emacs editor and the Instantiations jFactor stand-alone refactoring tool. Many basic editing environments support simple refactorings like renaming a function or variable across an entire code base. Most current refactoring-capable tools support Extract Method and Inline Method at minimum, but support for more complex but useful refactorings like Extract Interface and Extract Superclass is still not common, though available. Eric Raymond, a leading philosopher about program development, maintains that the concept of refactoring is consistent with the idea of get-something-working-now-and-perfect-it-later approach long familiar to Unix and open source programmers and hackers. The idea is also embodied in the approach known as Extreme Programming. ______________________ RELATED TERMS: source code http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci213030,00.html integrated development environment http://searchvb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid8_gci754848,00.html Emacs http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid39_gci212050,00.html Extreme Programming http://searchvb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid8_gci214366,00.html ______________________ SELECTED LINKS: Martin Fowler maintains a Web site about refactoring. http://www.refactoring.com/ Eric S. Raymond's article is called "Hacking and Refactoring." http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=5342 ______________________ TODAY'S TECH NEWS: LOVSAN STILL LOOSE; THOUSANDS HIT The Lovsan worm is still spreading, though it's difficult to put a number on just how many systems have been hit worldwide. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci919010,00.html IBM EXPANDS AVAILABILITY, IMPROVES ICT MESSAGING CLIENT IBM has expanded its experimental messaging client IBM and made it available to users of its AlphaWorks developer site. http://search400.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid3_gci919120,00.html IBM OFFERS FREE TOOLS FOR BUILDING GRID FUNCTIONALITY IBM is offering free tools that programmers can use to develop products for on-demand computing environments. The suite is available as a free download from IBM's AlphaWorks site. http://search400.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid3_gci918990,00.html >> Catch up on all the latest IT news at http://searchtechtarget.techtarget.com/ ______________________ Learning Path | Malware: Worms, viruses, and other malicious code Read our series of abbreviated definitions in sequence and be the malware Know-It-All at your office. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci915380,00.html ______________________ Secret Word-of-the-Day | What is it? HINT: This is a standard interactive programming language for getting information from (or updating) a database. >> Think you know the Secret Word-of-the-Day? See if you're right! http://searchdatabase.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid13_gci214230,00.html _____________________ Quiz #11 | Artificial Intelligence How much do you know about AI? Take this week's quiz and find out! >> Click to take the quiz http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid11_gci789222,00.html ______________________________ RECENT ADDITIONS AND UPDATES [1] dark energy http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci917929,00.html [2] strawman http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid11_gci840566,00.html [3] qubit http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci341232,00.html [4] flash mob http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci916705,00.html [5] IT Crossword Puzzle: Malware http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci916579,00.html ____________________________________________________________________ ::::::::::::::::::: WHATIS.COM CONTACTS ::::::::::::::::::: LOWELL THING, Site Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ____________________________________________________________________ MARGARET ROUSE, Associate Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ::::::::::::::::::::: ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER :::::::::::::::::::::: This newsletter is published by TechTarget, the most targeted IT media. http://www.techtarget.com Copyright 2003 TechTarget. 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