sometimes when a dev pushes for a refactor they'll say that the reason is about building maintainability/best-practices/code-philosophy/whatever but the TRUE re

sometimes when a dev pushes for a refactor they'll say that the reason is about building maintainability/best-practices/code-philosophy/whatever but the TRUE reason that they may not even be willing to admit to themselves is that they see something FUN in the refactor. finding patterns that could be abstracted is fun like solving a tricky puzzle. or getting a chance to play with a new framework or language feature and just seeing what it's like. i don't know how a manager is supposed to handle this situation, but as a dev once i realize what my true motivation is it becomes a lot easier. i can separate the 'coding for work' from the 'coding for fun' and just put my head down and do the boring work and look for the fun somewhere else.