Who am I?

I have been working in IT for the best part of two decades. Istarted work as a programmer with IBM in Great Britain after graduating in Computer Science in 1985, and since then has worked in computing in the United States, Poland, and most recently Belgium, where I have worked as an IT contractor for a number of companies, both practicing and encouraging refactoring.

Though experience does not necessarily equate to knowledge or wisdom, I can at least claim a long experience in the world of software development. I have been programming since the days of ticker-tape and punched cards; I was taught to do object-oriented programming in IBM even before object-oriented programming languages existed outside research fields (we were taught to do OO in C), and as an IT contractor I consider it part of my profession to know as much as possible about all the technologies and methodologies which emerge.

In between contracting and writing my book on refactoring, I am learning Dutch, and have created a number of websites, of course applying strongly the principles of refactoring.

That even the plough boy may understand

This blog is about making everyone in IT understand refactoring, and it has always been a challenge to bring knowledge to the masses. In the 15th century, (yes, that’s even before Cobol and C++ was invented), when priests insisted the Bible was read in Latin, William Tyndale set out to translate the Bible into English, and when a priest attacked Tyndale’s beliefs, he replied " If God spare my life, before very long I shall cause a plough boy to know the scriptures better than you do!" If Martin Fowler’s book on refactoring is the Latin Vulgate, for the educated elite, this book on refactoring is for the plough boy of the software land, the everyman programmer and the busy IT manager.

And that is what excites me about this blog; it is my hope that all programmers throughout the land and all IT managers, will know about refactoring. And that the desperate need for refactoring and its clear benefits will become apparent, and that the world of software development will have taken another small step forward.
Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake to thank him for his task; his last words reported to be, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes". Though I certainly don’t wish to share his fate, my hope is like his, that your eyes would be opened, though to different truths to the one’s Tyndale died for, to the glorious software truths which make up the subject of this blog, the subject of refactoring.

See my book The Refactoring Workout for more on refactoring.

Refactoring Introduction

The problem you always get with software is that over time it becomes harder and harder to change it, harder and harder to add new functionality, and harder and harder to fix bugs in it. This is because the internal structure of the program becomes worse and worse, making it more and more difficult to make all these changes. It is as though the program has become unfit. Refactoring is about how to keep the program in a healthy state so that it is as easy as possible to change it, so that it is as easy as possible to add new functionality, and so that it is as easy as possible to find and fix bugs in it. If the natural tendency of software is to become unfit, refactoring is about how to fight that tendency and to keep the program as healthy as possible.

See my book The Refactoring Workout for more on refactoring.