Principle-Based Refactoring: Learning Software Design Principles by Applying Refactoring Rules

You know good software when you see it, but how do you explain what good software is? Experienced software developers have pet practices and techniques that make their software easier to test, maintain and understand. But when you ask them how to make your software like theirs, they give you a seemingly endless list of rules. How can they remember all those rules? The secret is that they don't! Instead, experienced software developers understand a handful of basic principles. The rules are merely manifestations of these basic principles. But, principles are hard to explain; so experienced developers resort to explaining rules instead. In Principle-Based Refactoring, Halladay explains a set of software refactoring rules and links the refactoring rules back to the basic principles that drive robust software design. The book identifies eight fundamental design principles and also includes a set of approximately fifty refactoring rules that illustrate the principles. Each rule has a summary description, a discussion, including references back to the driving principles, and examples of the rules' applications. In addition, this book discusses refactoring mechanics including test strategies that guide software developers in verifying the quality of refactored code.