I think it is worth making the distinction between refactoring and rewriting. I tend to take the strict view that refactoring should not change behaviour, so fo

I think it is worth making the distinction between refactoring and rewriting. I tend to take the strict view that refactoring should not change behaviour, so for example if a unit test fails, and you refactor some code, the unit test should still fail because the code should still be doing the same thing. Since you say that you were fixing a bug, and the length of time it took, my guess is that what you were doing was a rewrite, not a refactor. Someone else had a good line about refactoring, though I don't remember who it was: if you're refactoring code, and it isn't unit tested, you are not refactoring. You're just changing shit.