What Refactorings are in Whdibey?
If you didn't go to the last PDC or VSLive, and you're not an MSDN subscriber, you probably don't have access to any previews of Whidbey. (Hmm, what about Kazaa?).
The big question on your mind, I’m sure, is “What refactorings actually made it into Whidbey?” I plan to discuss each in turn.
You can see the criteria used to select Refactorings in my earlier post. Obviously we're doing ExtractMethod and Rename.
Sometime people ask if we’re going to do all the Refactorings that Fowler lists in his book. I’m always surprised to hear this question. What would it mean to automate, say, Substitue Algorithm?
There are quite a few refactorings we would have liked to include in Whidbey, but weren’t able to. For example, I’d like a refactoring to reverse the clauses of an if conditional (negating the condition), but it’s not in there. There’s still hope, depending on what feedback we get from the upcoming Beta.
I’m interested in hearing what Refactorings you think we should have included. For bonus points, tell me what feature we can cut to make time for your proposal.
Comments
- Anonymous
April 07, 2004
So the key question is... How easy is it for users to add new refactorings? - Anonymous
April 07, 2004
I'm not sure how easy it is now, or could be made, but it would be nice if macros, extensions whatever could seamlessly be inserted into the refactoring menu. - Anonymous
April 08, 2004
About the refactorings, you could take a look at Intellij's IDEA (www.intellij.com). It's the best tool I've ever found for java programming. It gives you such confidence in refactoring that you simply rely on it.
But I have a suggestion that has nothing to do with refactorings: is it possible to have a flag on the compiler to check for compliance on the CLS standard? Like warnings for classes that aren't cammel capitalized, etc? - Anonymous
April 08, 2004
Tony: We don't plan to make it easy to add new refactorings in Whidbey. It's something we intend to do in a future version.
Louis: You can always write macros and add them to any menu you like.
Leonardo: You should check out FxCop (see google). It will warn you about just that sort of thing. - Anonymous
April 08, 2004
This is a bit off topic, but are there any plans for refactorings in the C++ world? - Anonymous
April 14, 2004
Staffan: I don't know for sure, and haven't gotten an answer when I asked. Sorry.