Refactor Without Changing the Story
Define refactoring as behavior-preserving change and choose a safe verification loop.
The boundary Refactoring is structure work under a behavior lock. You can rename, extract, move, inline, or split code, but the user-visible behavior must remain the same after each step. This is what makes refactoring teachable: it is not a mood, it is a constraint. The loop A safe loop is: pick one structural move, make it small enough to review, run the quickest meaningful check, and commit or continue. The test does not need to be huge. It needs to protect the behavior touched by the move. The trap Beginners often combine refactoring with feature work because both happen…
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