Should We Refactor Old Code

Technology is growing so fast that if we do not keep us upgraded, we may stand far behind in the techno race. Every developer will agree with this that he can code a better solution whenever he looks back at his code after few months. Someone may disagree by saying that why should he touch the stable code. Let me explain this with an example.

Suppose, you have coded the following script in your SQL Server stored procedure.

DECLARE @unitPrice int

DECLARE @qty int

DECLARE @total int

DECLARE @grandTotal int

SET @grandTotal = 0

DECLARE cursorTxn CURSOR FOR

SELECT unitPrice, qty

FROM Transactions

OPEN cursorTxn

FETCH NEXT FROM cursorTxn INTO @unitPrice, @qty

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

       SET @total = (@unitPrice * @qty)

       SET @grandTotal = @grandTotal + @total

       FETCH NEXT FROM cursorTxn INTO @unitPrice, @qty

END

CLOSE cursorTxn

DEALLOCATE cursorTxn

This snippet works fine, calculates the correct grand total of all the transactions and return the result to the caller. One can say that it is a stable procedure and does the job well. However, if he checks his code after few months and he has already polished his skillsets, he may call this piece of code a crap. He can easily upgrade this piece of code by using the following alternative.

DECLARE @grandTotal int

SELECT @grandTotal = SUM(unitPrice * qty)

FROM Transactions

The above code will return the same result but in a much optimized way.

So, instead of rewriting your code, do refactor your code.