A lesson on refactoring

[Apricato]

A lesson that touched on the principles of refactoring: what is refactoring, when to refactor code , refactoring techniques, best practices, Etc.

Possibly an assignment to refactor some previous code.

Otherwise making a reference to it somewhere on the curriculum

[JoshDevHub]

I think this is one of those things that can be a bit difficult to teach. There are some refactoring katas and stuff (like Gilded Rose), but I'm not necessarily convinced they're good proxies for "real" refactoring problems.

I also think it's something that's more relevant for advanced learners, and advanced learners need less direction/guidance. If anything, I'm thinking this could potentially be something that's more indirectly explored through a project like the one brought up in this discussion: #27997

[Apricato]

That discussion has not been active since 2024, I wonder what ended up happening

[mao-sz]

I'm in agreement with Josh (link to original Discord discussion which contains my further thoughts).

Regarding the linked discussion, nothing has been worked on since because something like that is pretty large in scope. Something of that scope would need a maintainer to spend a lot of time shaping, and that's if a direction is actually agreed on in the first place. Often with these, there are many many things to consider before something is actionable. Depending on things like the scope of teaching involved, how that plays with the curriculum and any significant gaps in the pedagogy, "urgency" of such action, other ongoing work that takes priority, individual time available etc., things like this may not get worked on for quite a while if at all.

Basically from revisiting that discussion, a lot of the sentiment was "nice to have if we can work out the details" but it's working out the right details that needs a lot of thought, and IMHO not as huge a priority to me vs other ongoing work.