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Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Hasty Treat - Refactoring

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes discuss refactoring, what it is, why you should do it, when to do it, as well as best practices and much more.

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Show Notes

5:00 - What is refactoring and why would you do it?

  • Re-writing code while maintaining functionality
  • The first code you write is most likely not your best code

7:32 - Benefits To Refactoring

  • Keep part of your codebase in your head
  • Keep codebase timely and up to date (E.g. promises, async, await, etc.)
  • Writing code from the vantage point of having already built your product
  • Performance improvement

12:54 - When to refactor

  • When it’s stopping your from progressing
  • When brining someone new on to your team
  • When you can see a more elegant solution
  • When you’re having performance issues
  • When you’re sharing or presenting code
  • When you have a large codebase that needs to be broken up into smaller components

19:03 - Tips on how to refactor

  • Testing will make refactoring easier
  • Identify bad code and problem areas
  • Use git as an escape hatch
  • Break things into smaller chunks
  • Publish often use code to npm as modules
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