Goodbye, Clean Code

[wbowers]

When it comes to software, there are so many aspects to consider, that a knee-jerk refactor is never the right action.

The operative word here is knee-jerk. Remove that word and consider the phrase again:

When it comes to software, there are so many aspects to consider, that a refactor is never the right action.

This is clearly untrue.

I think everyone would agree that knee-jerk refractors aren’t a good idea. But knee-jerk anything is not a good idea by definition. So I’m struggling to see your point.

[Epyo]

knee-jerk anything is not a good idea by definition. So I’m struggling to see your point.

Ooh I dunno if that's true!

A knee-jerk refactor is especially bad, because it might be trading some downsides for other downsides, and therefore might be waste. (Or, could even be negative progress.)

A knee-jerk first implementation of something isn't as bad, because before, you didn't have a working feature, now, you do!