Refactoring means changing the internal structure and makeup of some piece of software without changing its external behavior. It sure is valid thinking to not want to spent time (and money!) on something that works, without obviously improving it. But nevertheless, there are several good reasons for refactoring, the most important is improving the interaction with the code, and not the functionality.

In this talk, Thorsten will try to shed some light on several concepts and aspects related to code refactoring, such as OOP, DRY, coupling, (inter)dependence, YAGNI, code quality, code smells, technical debt, and developer productivity, to only name a few.

By the example of a legacy PHP 5.2 codebase, Thorsten will explain possible steps and the underlying reasons to refactor it to a modern, SOLID, object-oriented one.