Introduction and Context Setting

Welcome to our session on eliminating duplicated code and improving maintainability by extracting methods and refactoring magic numbers. Writing clean and maintainable code is a key element in modern software development, with refactoring playing a vital role in achieving this. This lesson is dedicated to identifying duplicate code sections and restructuring them to enhance readability and maintainability.

In this course, we use Ruby, a dynamic, reflective, object-oriented, and general-purpose programming language, along with RSpec, a Behavior Driven Development (BDD) framework for Ruby. These tools aid us in writing reliable tests and handling code changes smoothly.

This lesson continues from an existing ShoppingCart example to focus on the 'Refactor' aspect of the 'Red, Green, Refactor' cycle. Let's dive into identifying and restructuring duplicated code to improve our codebase.

What is a Code Smell and How Do You Eliminate Them?

Before focusing on specific "smells," we should first understand what "code smells" signify. Code smells suggest potential issues in the code, such as poorly structured code or potential defects, even though they aren't bugs themselves. Common examples include duplicate code, long methods, and magic numbers. These issues often hinder code readability and maintainability, leading to significant problems over time.

Refactoring patterns offer structured techniques to tackle these code smells and improve the overall quality of the codebase while preventing behavioral changes. By using these patterns, we can systematically transform problematic sections into cleaner, more efficient code. In this lesson, we'll combat duplications by applying refactoring patterns, like extracting methods and refactoring magic numbers, to enhance our application code's clarity and adaptability. We can rely on our tests to ensure that we are not breaking any existing functionality!

Understanding Code Duplication
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