Refactoring 101 for complete beginners

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Working in the field for a while, I find that new folks in the field have a problem with refactoring. I think the primary problems are:

  • Code without tests is dangerous and frankly scary to refactor
  • It's really easy to copy/paste code, and if you don't have to support and bug fix things, the merits of clean and concise code are lost
While I don't claim to fix anything, here's a quick guide on how/why to refactor (for complete newbies):

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