At 01:13 AM 5/1/98 +0200, Reinier van Loon wrote:
>Uhh, could some explain what this Refactoring Browser does?
>
>Why is it so special?
>
>I mean, I've downloaded the code but didn't get the idea.

The Refactoring Browser is different things to different people. To some it
is a better browser than the default browser since it includes things like
buffers, window/menus/icons viewers, the ability switch between
hierarchy/category views, etc. These people like it since they don't need
to open 10 different windows to work. 

Other people use the browser for the code critic part (Smalllint). They
want to make sure they haven't done anything "stupid" in their code. Some
even make all their code pass certain Smalllint rules before it can be
released.

Still others like the browser for the refactorings. They use the browser to
clean up their code. They perform functions such as renaming
methods/variables/classes, extracting code, moving variables/methods to
other classes, etc. While they could do these functions by hand, they rely
on the browser to do them quicker, safer, and easier than they could by hand. 

The last group uses the browser for quick transformations to their code
using the rewrite tool. However, I don't know of anyone using just the
rewrite tool without the other parts.

Myself, I use the Refactoring Browser for all the above reasons :).


John Brant