Gardening Your Architecture, Part 1: Refactoring

Refactoring has a more precise definition than common practice might suggest: it´s a change that improves the developmental quality of some part of a system while preserving its functional behavior. Refactoring isn´t limited to code detail but can range up to the larger scale of a system´s software architecture. Yet refactoring is limited in what qualities it can help improve. It can also do more harm than good when practiced informally or ad hoc or when it´s used as a synonym for any form of change in a system.