[BangPypers] refactoring

[steve]

I had sent this reply below earlier ...not sure why it didn't go thru' 
...anyways, enough has already been said about this, however, since I already 
wrote this reply below, I thought I might as well make my point ...

Hi Santosh,

On 12/04/2010 05:36 PM, Santosh Rajan wrote:
> My 2 cents on this subject. I think the problem of differing
> viewpoints is mainly due to the fact that there are two kinds of
> software development.
>
> 1) Software product development
> 2) Bespoke software development.
>
> Let us look at software product development, and let us look at all
> the top open source software development projects like linux, apache,
> mozilla etc etc. I have not seen refactoring as described by the book
> used by any of the open source software products. I would like to know
> if any one can show me refactoring used in software product
> development.
>

The very nature of Open Source Software development model is refactoring ! It 
isn't called that but that's what it is. Try to describe the process of FOSS 
development and then the way code is affected by refactoring and you would see 
the similarities. The only difference is in FOSS projects this is done by 
separate individuals in an unplanned manner -- the net effect from the /code's/ 
perspective though is that is being refactored. I'd go as far as saying that 
patches which refactor existing code in mature FOSS products are as at least the 
same in number as those that introduce new features.

cheers,
- steve

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