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I'm not going to argue that refactoring is unnecessary, far from it. However with each refactor there is always the possibility of introducing a hard to debug r

• YokoZar 12y ago
  If you refactor in a way that you improve code readability and reduce complexity, you substantially reduce the likelihood of having an undiscovered bug that is already in your code.
• mhomde 12y ago
  I agree with you to a certain extent but... the road to code hell is paved with "don't disturb the tests" intentions ;) This is a bigger problem the less continuously you refactor. I've seen this mentality in a lot of projects, where they don't dare "mess with the code" because it might introduce bugs or break the tests... but IMHO this is where I think TDD sometimes goes too far. It should ring warning bells if your code, tests and development cycle is so fragile that you can't do continuous cleanup. In its extreme this is the lava flow anti-pattern. It must always be preferable to get the code base as compact and simple as possible but bugs will be easier to find and the code easier to understand for everyone... otherwise you're just accumulating technical debt. Rather than storing nitroglycerin in a pillow factory it usually is a good idea to make it less volatile.