DEV Community

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Hasty Treat - Refactoring

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes discuss refactoring, what it is, why you should do it, when to do it, as well as best practices and much more.

Netlify — Sponsor

Netlify is the best way to deploy and host a front-end website. All the features developers need right out of the box: Global CDN, Continuous Deployment, one click HTTPS and more. Hit up netlify.com/syntax for more info.

Show Notes

5:00 - What is refactoring and why would you do it?

  • Re-writing code while maintaining functionality
  • The first code you write is most likely not your best code

7:32 - Benefits To Refactoring

  • Keep part of your codebase in your head
  • Keep codebase timely and up to date (E.g. promises, async, await, etc.)
  • Writing code from the vantage point of having already built your product
  • Performance improvement

12:54 - When to refactor

  • When it’s stopping your from progressing
  • When brining someone new on to your team
  • When you can see a more elegant solution
  • When you’re having performance issues
  • When you’re sharing or presenting code
  • When you have a large codebase that needs to be broken up into smaller components

19:03 - Tips on how to refactor

  • Testing will make refactoring easier
  • Identify bad code and problem areas
  • Use git as an escape hatch
  • Break things into smaller chunks
  • Publish often use code to npm as modules
Links Tweet us your tasty treats!

Episode source