Skip to main content.

Book Information

  • Title: Refactoring - Improving The Design of Existing Code
  • ISBN: 0201485672
  • Author/Editor: Martin Fowler
  • Publisher: Addison-Wesley
  • Publishing date: 2000
  • Pages: 431
     Cover of the Book

Book Reviews

Review by Shlomi Fish, June 2004

Refactoring is improving the internal design of a code without changing its external behaviour. This book is the definite guide to refactoring, at least in object-oriented systems.
The first chapters of the book are rather general. They introduce the motivation for refactoring, why it is good, why it actually speeds up development. Also, they also give a list of "bad smells" in the code that indicate that a refactoring is needed. (like duplicate code).
The middle part of the book which is its lion's share is a catalog of various refactorings. These are things like extracting a method, creating a superclass, eliminating inheritance, or creating one. The author explains there each refactoring, when to do it, the steps for performing it most safely, and then usually gives an example of how to do it. I found the catalog a bit tedious to read, but interesting nonetheless. It taught me some new techniques that I was not previously aware of.
The final chapters wrap up the book, and are also interesting to read. They consist of an essay by William Opdyke (who wrote a very early research paper on refactoring) titled "Refactoring, Reuse and Reality", a chapter about Refactoring Tools, and a short summarizing chapter by Kent Beck.
The book smells a bit of hype: Java is used as the example language (albeit its use there is quite justified); there are many UML diagrams (which were at first confusing to me due to the many kind of arrows they have); and there are references of several of the so-called Design Patterns. (from the Gang of Four book and otherwise). But they don't detract much from an otherwise good book.
The book can also be used as a reference to look for refactorings or see how can they be performed well. I think this book has made me more conscious of how I refactor and write code, and I try to refactor in a way that will minimize the errors caused by it. I'm also now more aware of the "two hats", as Fowler puts it, of either refactoring code or adding new features.
To sum, this is a very good and important book to read, especially for beginning programmers. I'm just not sure it justifies the $54.00 list price. This is too much of a price for such a book.