We love refactoring applications

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Refactoring applications or changing basic functionality can be quite labor-intensive and repetitive. Not with the MetaFactory tool.

A daily discussion in the scrum team …

Product owner: ‘Can we change the search functionality in all our overview screens to a more comprehensive look and feel?’
Developer: ‘Sure we can, but that’s a lot of boring work and are you willing to spend a lot of story points on it?’
Developer: ‘We could change the search functionality screen by screen whenever we have to change an overview screen anyway.’
Product owner: ‘Then I will end up with an application where a part of my screens are updated and a part is still the old way of working. Can’t you figure out something smart?’
Developer: ‘I can ask MetaFactory how to automate these changes.’

You might recognize these kind of conversations, except perhaps for the last sentence… At MetaFactory we love product owners with requests like this. On our meetup event we will show you why and how.

THE CHALLENGE

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Adding or changing basic functionality, like our search functionality example, to existing applications can be quite a hassle. Our search function example is overview screen dependent. A moderate to complex application can easily have 20 or far more overview screens. Manually changing only the look and feel of the search functionality in all overview screens is quite a job when it comes to programming and testing, even if you already automated your end-to-end tests. Okay, maybe you already created a uniform search function that is independent of the corresponding overview screens. Then this is a bad example, but you will undoubtedly recognize the challenge of a minor adjustment that has to be realized on numerous places in your source code. And when it comes to refactoring applications, programming might become a labor-intensive repetitive job in stead of an art full of creativity and craftsmanship.

THE METAFACTORY WAY

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With the MetaFactory tool refactoring numerous functions in one time becomes as complicated as changing a single function. In MetaFactory you would define the search functionality example in:

• A model for the search variance per overview screen, and

• In code instructions for the software architecture.

So changing the look and feel of the search functionality in an overview screen is a matter of changing the model and/or code instructions for all overview screens at once. So programming remains an art that requires craftsmanship and not days and days of repetitive work.

THE MEETUP
During the meetup we will demonstrate the concept of the MetaFactory tool and we will show you how your source code is created and your application changes, by adjusting the MetaFactory model and code instructions. Food and drinks are available.