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.