Summary
Legacy code is an unavoidable byproduct of the forces of time and constant change that are present in software development projects. This legacy code becomes a breeding ground for technical debt, which threatens our productivity as developers and the quality of our software.
While technical debt can arise due to a number of reasons, refactoring is the cure. Refactoring reworks existing code into a more maintainable and less risky form, reducing our technical debt and helping us control our legacy code.
The more you understand the causes and effects of technical debt in your code, the better you’ll find yourself equipped to explain technical debt to others in your organization, advocate for refactoring, and avoid things that cause your code to decline in effectiveness over time.
In the next chapter, we’ll explore refactoring in more depth by walking through a set of targeted changes to improve a piece of sample code from the Cloudy Skies Airlines codebase...
