Refactoring is one of the most powerful tools for improving the intrinsic quality of any code base. Yet, as important as refactoring is, non-technical business stakeholders tend to see little value in the practice. After struggling for a decade to articulate refactoring in such a way that the ROI was obvious, I finally stumbled upon an analogy that seems to work: Building with Lego vs. Play-Doh. In this presentation I will demonstrate the techniques I use to turn an apprehensive room of business owners into the biggest supporters of refactoring in your organization.
As I enter my 18th year of developing software, several recurring trends and forces have become obvious to me. My day job as a technical lead affords me time in the evening to write articles and prepare talks around these trends and forces, all of which interest me greatly. To date these talks include “The ROI of Refactoring”, “Nothing Matters More Than Coding Fast”, and most recently “Writing Custom DSLs” - which was a sneaky way to speak about these trends and forces in the form of technical talk.
