Developers: please stop using the term ‘Refactor’ if you do not run a good suite of automated unit tests before and after the change

Without the safety net of automated testing, it is just ‘code changing’, not ‘code refactoring’.

I expressed this view (as the title) in a project meeting many years ago and I regretted it. Why? The statement is correct, based on the definition of Code Refactoring. However, it did no good to my relationship with the other developers in the team simply because they did not understand, and I was not in a position to influence them.

The Story

About 16 years ago, I left the position as a Lead Developer (in Java) and joined a large .NET project for two reasons:

• learn a new technology/language
  influenced by classic the Pragmatic Programmer book, to try a different language
• get better pay
  there was no shame to admit that, as a contractor programmer and a sole bread earner of the family.

There were a number of issues with the software development practices in this new project. For example, a configuration engineer (who managed the building of the software) once claimed excitedly: “It compiled!”. The project lead (i.e. PM), who worked…