Make bad Java code good

by John Farrell

March 30, 2001 —

So, you've inherited some code. It's 50,000 lines of the oldest code on the project. The authors have left the company and won't return your calls. It's undocumented, and badly designed. What do you do?

Don't stress. This article will make some concrete suggestions as to the sorts of things you can do, from the simple and mindless to the complex and dangerous.

Some of the suggestions that follow are nothing new. Indeed, concepts such as documenting code and following coding standards have been drummed into programmers since they went to school. However, the usual reasons given are motherhood statements -- things you wouldn't say the opposite of (be a good boy, write understandable code, for example). I've tried to explain why you would want to do those things, and what their positive effects are.

So, let's get to it.

Bonus: Pose your pressing code refactoring questions to Dr. John Farrell in JavaWorld's Programming Theory & Practice discussion. He uses the nickname friendless there.

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