Lessons Learned in Software Refactoring

A couple quick lessons I learned while refactoring: (these are also useful ideas for how testers might model bug appearances or doubt representativeness of one or several results, overcoming representativeness bias).

• Ask "where else?"
• Search for the affected function names
• Loop back to the top of the file
• Take a moment to slow down and ask if there are other changes
• Is this statement or construct unique or does it occur elsewhere?
• When adding something in a lot of places, wrap around until you come back to a starting point.
• Don't just go to the end of file.
• Ask how this refactor, even if small, might affect the quality criteria (see CRUSSPIC STMPL)