From Chaos to Clarity: CTO’s Guide to Successful Software {Code} Refactoring

Whether you’re looking to add new features, innovate, or optimize performance, your growing product will likely require code refactoring to maintain its viability and competitiveness over time. The situation becomes even more acute if the previous developers left you with poor quality code that prevents you from moving forward.

Code refactoring is an effective approach to facilitate systematic software improvement, helping product owners to get rid of technical debt, improve code readability, and simplify maintainability. 

This guide explains how to successfully perform software refactoring to achieve your business goals. 

When Should You Consider Software Refactoring? 

Refactoring is the process of reviewing and changing existing code to improve its quality, maintainability, and performance without altering the external behavior. It involves a series of systematic changes aimed at making the codebase cleaner and more efficient, simplifying future development and scaling. It’s typically a component of broader software modernization efforts rather than a standalone project, aligning with business needs and addressing technical debt.

Here are some signs and scenarios that can help you decide when refactoring is a good idea:

• Redundant and complex codebase

As software grows, code can become overly complicated and difficult to understand, making modifications and extensions challenging. Refactoring simplifies and clarifies the code, enhancing its readability and maintainability.

• Signs of poor performance

If software performance degrades or fails to meet efficiency benchmarks, refactoring can optimize it and improve its speed and responsiveness. 

• Migration to newer technologies and libraries

When migrating legacy systems to newer technologies and libraries, code refactoring ensures smooth integration and compatibility, preventing potential issues down the line.

• Frequent bugs

Frequent bugs and system crashes often indicate a messy codebase that requires cleanup. If your team spends more time tracking down bugs than developing new features, code refactoring can improve stability and reliability.

• Onboarding team of new developers

Onboarding new developers is another instance where refactoring is beneficial. Standardizing the code base ensures new team members can understand and work with it more effectively.

• Code issues

Duplicated code, large classes, or extensive use of global variables, indicate poor design and technical debt accumulation. Addressing these issues through refactoring improves the overall design and reduces technical debt.

• Before implementing new key features

If adding new functionalities becomes difficult due to the existing code structure, refactoring can streamline the process as it provides a more flexible and cleaner foundation for development.

The Key Benefits of Software Refactoring

Based on the above-mentioned use cases, you can see that software code refactoring offers extensive business benefits. It improves software quality by making the code more readable and structured, thus enhancing maintainability. 

Addressing technical debt reduces complexity and improves performance, leading to fewer bugs and increased scalability. Code refactoring accelerates the development process by creating a more manageable codebase and reduces IT expenses associated with maintaining legacy code.

Other advantages of software refactoring include the following:

1. Introduced modern best practices, such as continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) that improves interoperability with modern third-party tools. 
2. Enhanced cybersecurity by removing vulnerabilities caused by outdated programming practices. Additionally, using modern practices and technologies through software refactoring attracts and retains top talent, making the organization a more attractive employer.
3. Innovations thanks to freeing developers from dealing with error-prone code, allowing them to focus on new features and improvements.   

When You Don’t Need Code Refactoring

While code refactoring is a powerful tool for improving software quality and maintainability, there are scenarios where it may not be the best approach. 

Complete Revamp Required

Refactoring is designed to clean up and optimize existing code without changing its external behavior. However, there are instances where software is so outdated or flawed that a complete revamp is more efficient. In such cases, starting from scratch rather than refactoring the existing codebase is often more practical. This app modernization approach can address fundamental architectural issues that refactoring alone cannot resolve. This is exactly the way we chose for our client SmartTab to modernize their POS system. 

Tight Time Frames

Another situation where code refactoring might not be advisable is when you are working under a strict deadline to bring a product to market. Refactoring can be a time-consuming process, often involving extensive coding and testing. If the timeline is already tight, adding the additional burden of refactoring can lead to delays and increased costs. In such cases, it might be more beneficial to focus on delivering a functional product and plan for code refactoring in subsequent phases.

Assessing the Need for Code Refactoring

Understanding when to refactor and when to consider more extensive changes is essential for optimizing your software development process and achieving your business objectives. Experienced software consultants can help make the right decision by assessing your software and goals to determine if you truly need code refactoring or if more significant changes like software re-engineering are necessary.

Example of Code Refactoring from MobiDev’s Experience 

Usually, code refactoring is part of a larger legacy application modernization effort that helps adapt the product to new business goals. Let’s take a look at what it can look like using one of the projects our company worked on. 

We helped a multi-tenant Ruby on Rails fintech startup to improve their product and prepare it for adding new features. The initial software audit showed some challenges that we needed to address:

1. Slow response time under load
2. Increased development time for new features
3. Single point of failure
4. Lack of security mechanisms
   

These risks threatened the product’s ability to scale, deliver new features efficiently, and maintain a secure and reliable platform for its customers.

After analyzing all the necessary components of the software and the infrastructure, we proposed a plan that included code base optimization, breaking monolith architecture into microservices, and cloud migration services for transferring to a new cloud infrastructure. 

To achieve these goals, we had to refactor some functionality of the platform. Below you will find a small example of refactoring a dashboard without altering the product architecture, which illustrates how small changes can improve code quality and simplify further development.

Refactoring dashboard functionality

Challenge: The dashboard, displaying key bank office statistics, had duplicated code for calculating original prices, applying discounts, and rendering this data across different charts. This redundant functionality, written independently by multiple developers, resulted in a codebase that was difficult to read and debug.

Goal: The main goal of the refactoring was to maintain the original dashboard functionalities while improving overall code readability and quality.

Action & Result: To address the above-mentioned challenges, we created a separate operation to handle this functionality and reused it wherever needed, following the DRY (“Don’t repeat yourself”) principle. This approach provides more granular control over the code, enhances readability (since developers spend most of their time reading code, cleaner code reduces the time required for changes, resulting in faster development and time to market), and most importantly, allows for precise unit testing. As a result, we detected several inaccuracies related to rare edge cases.

# Code sample №1 before refactoring

# frozen_string_literal: true
 
module Dashboards
 module Charts
   class PrintingMaterialsCosts
     def initialize(...)
       # ...
     end
 
     def call(...)
       # ...
 
       price_with_discount = ((1 - (bank_office.discount_rate || 0) * 0.01) * original_price).round(2)
 
       # ...
     end
   end
 end
end

# Code sample №1 after refactoring

# frozen_string_literal: true
 
module Dashboards
 module Charts
   class PrintingMaterialsCosts
     def initialize(...)
       # ...
     end
 
     def call(...)
       # ...
       price_with_discount, discount_rate = Dashboards::Calculations::ApplyPerBankOfficeDiscount.new.call(bank_office: bank_office, original_price: original_price)
       # ...
     end
   end
 end
end

# Code sample №2 before refactoring

# frozen_string_literal: true
 
module Dashboards
 module Panels
   class PrintingMaterialsCostsPerOffice
     def initialize(...)
       # ...
     end
 
     def call
       # ...
       bank_office_discount = total_price * (bank_office.discount_rate || 0) / 100.0
       price_with_discount = (total_price - bank_office_discount).round(2)
       # ...
     end
   end
 end
end

# Code sample №2 after refactoring

# frozen_string_literal: true
 
module Dashboards
 module Panels
   class PrintingMaterialsCostsPerOffice
     def initialize(...)
       # ...
     end
 
     def call
       # ...
       price_with_discount, discount_rate = Dashboards::Calculations::ApplyPerBankOfficeDiscount.new.call(
         bank_office: bank_office,
         original_price: total_price
         )
       # ...
     end
   end
 end
end

By refactoring the dashboard functionalities, we not only improved code readability and maintainability but also enhanced the performance and reliability of the product. This simple example illustrates the importance of refactoring as a step in the broader software modernization journey, addressing technical debt, and ensuring a scalable and secure system.

Oleh Chuiev

Ruby Developer

Code Refactoring Strategy: 10 Step to Effectively Perform Software Refactoring 

If you’re confident that code refactoring is the right approach for your product improvement, it’s time to dive into the step-by-step process. Refactoring should always be guided by clear objectives and aligned with your business goals to ensure it adds value beyond mere technical improvements.

Step 1: Define your goals

Understand and articulate why you are refactoring. Goals may include improving code maintainability, reducing technical debt, enhancing performance, or preparing the codebase for new features. Clearly defined goals help in maintaining focus and measuring success.

Step 2: Assess the current state of software

Begin with a comprehensive software audit. This involves examining the system’s structure and identifying areas requiring attention. Understanding the existing codebase and its dependencies is crucial for making informed decisions during the code refactoring process.

• Consider the project’s direction: Ensure refactoring opportunities align with the project roadmap and business priorities.
• Investigate bugs: Identify if recurring bugs share a common origin in a complex part of the code, which may warrant a broader overhaul.
• Focus on critical components: Prioritize refactoring efforts on parts of the software that most significantly influence business goals.

Step 3: Prioritize core components for code refactoring

Concentrate on the most critical aspects that need attention. This ensures refactoring efforts are directed toward areas that will have the most significant impact on the codebase’s health, maintainability, and functionality. By prioritizing, developers can effectively allocate time and resources to address pressing issues like fixing bugs, reducing complexity, or improving performance.

Step 4: Build a risk mitigation plan

Software refactoring involves risks such as introducing new bugs, increasing technical debt, and causing schedule delays. To mitigate these risks:

1. Introduce thorough testing: Ensure a comprehensive test suite is in place to validate the code’s behavior remains consistent.
2. Plan and scope carefully: Code refactoring should be well-planned to avoid schedule delays and minimize disruptions to ongoing work.
3. Prevent scope creep: Stick to the defined code refactoring scope to avoid unplanned increases in time and resources.

Step 5: Choose the right code refactoring techniques

Select appropriate refactoring techniques based on the identified problems. Evaluate the impact and risks of each technique before making a decision. Key techniques include:

• Red-Green Refactoring: Writing a failing test (red), making it pass (green), and then refactoring. Used in projects that apply Test-Driven Development, where you write tests for your code before you write the actual implementation.

• Refactoring by Abstraction: Extracting classes, methods, or interfaces to simplify code. Can be used in any type of projects.

• Composing methods: Breaking down the code into smaller methods for better organization.
• Simplifying methods: Making methods simpler and more readable.
• Moving Features Between Objects: Relocating code to the appropriate classes or modules.
• Preparatory Refactoring: Making changes that simplify the implementation of future features.

Step 6: Allocate resources

Determine the resources needed for the refactoring tasks, including developer time and tools. If in-house expertise is lacking, consider consulting with software engineers who can assist with the analysis and implementation. At MobiDev, software refactoring teams consist of both tech strategy consultants and engineers to meet our clients business needs.

Step 7: Refactor in small steps

Refactor the code in small, incremental steps. This approach makes it easier to manage changes, reduce the risk of introducing bugs, and simplify the rollback process if necessary. Identify “code smells” and address them using appropriate refactoring patterns. Implement changes meticulously, ensuring that readability, maintainability, and performance are improved.

Step 8: Run tests

Conduct unit tests to ensure the refactored code is functional and free of bugs. Tests should be automated and run regularly to catch any regressions. Setting up CI/CD pipelines can automate testing and deployment, supporting an agile development process and ensuring smooth incremental updates.

Step 9: Document the changes

Document all changes made during the code refactoring process, including the rationale behind decisions and any lessons learned. This documentation will facilitate future maintenance and improvements.

Step 10: Deploy and monitor

After code refactoring, deploy the changes and monitor the system to ensure the improvements have been effective without introducing new issues. Gather user feedback to identify any remaining issues and gather suggestions for further enhancements.

By following these steps, you can perform software refactoring methodically and effectively, ensuring that the refactored codebase aligns with business goals and maintains high-quality standards.

Case study:

MODERNIZING AND REFACTORING A LEGACY CRM

How to Measure Software Refactoring Success?

To evaluate the success of software refactoring, you need to align metrics with your initial goals. Key indicators include business impact, code quality, performance metrics, development efficiency, and team feedback.

1. Business impact

First, assess user satisfaction by monitoring feedback, support tickets, and surveys. Improvements in these areas suggest positive changes from the user’s perspective. Conduct a return on investment (ROI) analysis to compare the cost of refactoring against benefits like reduced maintenance expenses or increased revenue due to better performance.

2. Code quality

Measure the maintainability index, which reflects how easy it is to maintain the code. A higher post-refactoring index indicates success. Additionally, cyclomatic complexity should be reduced, making the code simpler and easier to understand. 

A lower technical debt ratio, which compares the cost of fixing maintainability issues to the total development cost, also signifies improvement.

3. Performance metrics

Track key performance indicators such as response times, memory usage, and CPU load. Enhanced performance metrics indicate successful code refactoring, especially if optimization was a goal. 

For UI-related refactoring, look for improvements in load times, navigation speed, and overall responsiveness to gauge user experience enhancements.

4. Development efficiency

Monitor the bug rate — fewer bugs reported after refactoring indicate better code quality. If new features can be added more quickly and with fewer issues, the codebase has become more adaptable and easier to work with. Observing code churn, which is the amount of code changed, added, or removed, can provide insights into the stability and maturity of the codebase post-refactoring.

5. Team feedback

Collect feedback from the development team to assess their satisfaction and productivity. Improved satisfaction and ease of maintenance are qualitative measures of successful code refactoring. If developers find it easier to understand, modify, and extend the codebase, it signifies enhanced maintainability.

Revitalize Your Code With MobiDev

Refactoring your software can be a game-changer for your business, and MobiDev is here to ensure it aligns perfectly with your goals. Here’s how we can ensure quality and long-term success. 

• In-House expertise

Our team of skilled consultants and engineers can cover all your application modernization needs. We’ll work closely with you to develop a customized modernization strategy and carry it out effectively, ensuring your software is top-notch in quality and performance.

• Proven experience

With over a decade of experience in building, scaling, and modernizing software products, MobiDev has the expertise to tackle any refactoring challenge. Since 2009, we’ve been helping businesses transform their software to meet evolving demands and standards.

• Compliance and regulations

If your project requires adherence to specific compliance standards, MobiDev is equipped to help. We have extensive experience with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, GLBA, PCI DSS, and more. 

Lay a solid foundation for the development and growth of your product by relying on our code refactoring services. Let’s discuss your requirements and how we can meet them.