How do you keep your code refactoring skills up to date and learn from others?

1 Read code reviews

One of the best ways to learn from others is to read code reviews from your peers, mentors, or experts. Code reviews can provide you with valuable feedback, insights, and suggestions on how to improve your code quality, style, and structure. You can also learn from the mistakes, best practices, and refactoring techniques of other developers. You can find code reviews on online platforms, such as GitHub, Stack Overflow, or Code Review, or ask for them from your colleagues or mentors.

2 Refactor legacy code

Another way to sharpen your code refactoring skills is to refactor legacy code, which is old, outdated, or poorly written code that still works but is difficult to maintain, modify, or understand. Refactoring legacy code can be challenging, but also rewarding, as it can help you improve your problem-solving, debugging, and testing skills. You can also learn from the design patterns, principles, and trade-offs of legacy code, and apply them to your own code. You can find legacy code in open source projects, online challenges, or your own codebase.

3 Use refactoring tools

Refactoring tools are software applications or features that can help you automate, simplify, or support some aspects of code refactoring. For example, some tools can help you rename variables, extract methods, move classes, or detect code smells. Refactoring tools can save you time, effort, and errors, and also teach you new refactoring techniques or best practices. You can use refactoring tools that are built-in in your IDE (Integrated Development Environment), such as Eclipse, Visual Studio, or IntelliJ IDEA, or install external tools, such as Refactorit, JRefactory, or ReSharper.

4 Follow coding standards

Coding standards are guidelines or rules that define how to write, format, and document your code in a consistent and coherent way. Coding standards can help you improve your code readability, maintainability, and quality, and also make it easier to refactor your code. You can follow coding standards that are specific to your programming language, such as PEP 8 for Python, Java Code Conventions for Java, or PSR for PHP, or adopt coding standards that are common to your team, organization, or industry.

5 Learn from resources

Finally, you can keep your code refactoring skills up to date and learn from others by accessing various online or offline resources. These resources can provide theoretical knowledge, practical examples, tips, tricks, or best practices on code refactoring. Additionally, you can benefit from the experiences, opinions, or advice of other developers, experts, or mentors. Popular resources on code refactoring include Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler, Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin, the Refactoring Guru website, Refactoring to Patterns by Joshua Kerievsky and the Code Refactoring podcast.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?