We have all heard of Premature Optimization, but what do you thing about Premature Refactoring? Is there any such thing in your opinion?
Yes, there is. Refactoring is a way of paying down technical debt that has accrued over the life of your development process. However, the mere accrual of technical debt is not necessarily a bad thing.
To see why, imagine that you are writing tax-return analysis software for the IRS. Suddenly, new regulations are introduced at the last minute which break several of your original assumptions. Although you designed well, your domain model has fundamentally shifted from under your feet in at least one important place. It's April 14th, and the project must go live tomorrow, come hell or high water. What do you do?
- If you implement a nuts-and-bolts solution at the cost of some moderate technical debt, your system will become more rigid and less able to withstand another round of these changes. But the site can go live and proceed onward, and there will be no risk of delivering late; you're confident you can make the required changes.
- On the other hand, if you take the time to refactor the solution so that it now supports the new design in more sophisticated and flexible way, you'll have no trouble adapting to future changes. But you run the risk of your company's flagship product running up against the clock; you're not sure if the redesign will take longer than today.
In this case, the first option is the better choice. Assuming you have little previous technical debt, it's worth it to take your lumps now and pay it down later. This is, of course, a business decision, and not a design one.
