Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Eric Rizzo's avatar

I think that the scale of tidyings a developer can perform safely and comfortably can grow as the developer's experience with performing them grows. Do you agree?

For example, I can comfortably perform several changes that are slightly larger than many of the Tidyings you've described "at once" (ie, in one commit) in some code bases, but only now after 25+ years of experience in general and 15 or so in a particular language. I sometimes overestimate that ability and end up having to revert or spend more time than I should, but I feel safe because I'm aware of those triggers you've described - I just choose to ignore those "I've got a funny feeling about this" every once in a while.

Now, having written that thought down, I realize that certain code bases might be more "large tidyable" than others. It would be interesting to explore the characteristics of a code base that contribute to its tidyability scale.

So really 2 thoughts/questions here: 1) the individual developer's personality and experience level might contribute to the types and sizes of tidyings, and 2) the code base itself might contribute.

Expand full comment
Jim Amos's avatar

PSA: tidying is not the same as refactoring OOP code to functional because it's your style preference or creating many new abstraction without consulting the rest of your team regarding the agreed upon design patterns to use.

Expand full comment
8 more comments...

No posts