Moving Beyond: Unmasking the Structural Nightmares in Your Code

Your code has been refined by formatting, indenting, and adding a new layer of readability. But what if that’s just the tip of the iceberg? I found something disturbing after cleaning up the 1,276 lines of BtnGeraSerrada.java in my previous article: that the real issues weren't with the disorganized spacing or obscure variable names. They were buried in its structure, a monolithic entity that executes all tasks in a single, expansive class, from creating notes to changing statuses. We're going deeper today. Let's uncover the structural horrors that lie beneath the surface and establish a plan to address them. Are you prepared to discover what's going on?

Discovering the Monster

We made BtnGeraSerrada.java look better in the previous article by using consistent formatting and indentation. Let's face it, though: a crumbling foundation cannot be fixed by a gorgeous appearance. In Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, Robert C. Martin refers to this class as a "God Class." It was initially created to manage serrada (sawing) operations in a production system. A single class is attempting to handle all tasks, including generating production notes, handling transactions, checking status, and writing headers. It is a maintenance disaster waiting to happen with 1,276 lines.

Spotting the Code Smells

Based on Martin Fowler's Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, we must address the following structural issues:

1. God Class: BtnGeraSerrada violates the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP). It manages user confirmation, business logic, database interactions, and error reporting in a single place. The go method alone, for instance, juggles transactions, note creation, and status updates without obvious boundaries, spanning more than 100 lines.
2. Long Method: Methods like criaReqbloco, criaProducao, and go are excessively long, with repetitive logic, database requests, and nested if statements. Long methods disguise intent, making them difficult to fully understand and maintain, Fowler warns.
3. Tight Coupling: The class uses direct database queries and static calls for adhering to particular frameworks (EntityFacadeFactory, JapeSession). Because of this, BtnGeraSerrada is fragile and will break if the underlying API changes.
4. Code Duplication: Examine how the JapeSession handles are repeatedly opened and closed (hnd = JapeSession.open(); JapeSession.close(hnd);). This increases the chance of errors and violates the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle.
5. Data Clumps: Code gets harder to manage when groups of arguments (such as codemp, id, and tipMov) are passed around frequently without encapsulation.

Cyclomatic complexity, a decision-point-based measure of code complexity, can be used to quantify this. The nested if statements and transaction blocks in the go method probably contribute to its high score. These would be identified as red flags by manual inspection or SonarQube, indicating that the class requires more than a superficial modification.

An Individual Perspective

I've been there. I wrote classes like BtnGeraSerrada early in my career; they were useful, sure, but they were a headache for anyone who had to inherit them. I understand that the need to deliver rapidly frequently takes precedence over smart design. However, as Martin and Fowler stress, neglecting structural problems now will cost you in the form of lost debugging time, delayed onboarding, and angry coworkers tomorrow. This class is not exceptional; rather, it reflects typical threats in enterprise systems, particularly those developed under pressure.

Setting the Goals for the Series

Making BtnGeraSerrada more professional is our goal going forward, not just making it more attractive. In the following articles, we'll:

• Break the monolith into smaller, focused classes (SRP).
• Reduce coupling with dependency injection and interfaces.
• Eliminate duplication and complexity with KISS and DRY.
• Apply SOLID principles to ensure flexibility and scalability.
• Add tests and documentation to lock in quality.

This is an upgrade, not a band-aid solution. The lessons can be applied to any codebase that is drowning in its own complexity, but we'll be using BtnGeraSerrada as our canvas.

Key Takeaways

1. Structural problems take precedence over aesthetic ones: Long Methods, tight coupling, and a God Class can all be masked in well-formatted code.
2. Your guide is code smells: Look for signs of refactoring, such as redundancy, Long Methods, and God Classes.
3. Being prepared is essential: Identifying problems early on offers the conditions for successful change.

What structural nightmares have you come across in your own code? Have you engaged in tight coupling or confronted a God Class? Tell me about your experiences in the comments section; I'd certainly be curious about knowing how you've addressed these obstacles or what you're currently facing. Let's get a discussion going on creating software that survives!

#Java #CleanCode #SoftwareDevelopment #SoftwareEngineering #Refactoring #CodeQuality

Full disclosure: this article was written with the aid of Grok, an AI built by xAI, who helped me organize my ideas and polish the content. The concepts and insights, however, are based on my own daily experiences as a coder.