Refactoring: how to alter the design of existing software in a controlled and rapid manner.
Date	Friday, Sept. 8, 2000
Time	2-3pm
Speaker	Martin Fowler
Affiliation	Thoughtworks
Abstract	Almost every expert in Object-Oriented Development stresses the importance of iterative development. As you proceed with the iterative development, you need to add function to the existing code base. If you are really lucky that code base is structured just right to support the new function while still preserving its design integrity. Of course most of the time we are not lucky, the code does not quite fit what we want to do. You could just add the function on top of the code base. But soon this leads to applying patch upon patch making your system more complex than it needs to be. This complexity leads to bugs, and cripples your productivity. Refactoring is all about how you can avoid these problems by modifying your code in a controlled manner. Done well you can make far reaching changes to an existing system quickly, and without introducing new bugs. You can even take a procedural body of code and refactor it into an effective object-oriented design. With refactoring as part of your development process you can keep your design clean, make it hard for bugs to breed and keeping your productivity high. In this tutorial I'll show you an example of how a lump of poorly designed code can be put into good shape. In the process we'll see how refactoring works, demonstrate a handful of example refactorings, and discuss the key things you need to do to succeed.
Location	545 Technology Square (aka "NE43")
Room	Room 941
Bio	Martin Fowler is the Chief Scientist for ThoughtWorks, an Internet system integrator and consulting company. As an independent consultant he's spent over a decade applying object technology to business information systems; mentoring clients in business object development, analysis and design techniques, UML, Refactoring, lightweight development processes, and the use of patterns. Martin is a popular speaker at many software conferences and is a columnist for IEEE Software. He is the author of Analysis Patterns and the award winning UML Distilled. He is such a fan of refactoring that he enduring writing a third book: Refactoring.