Good news for Visual Basic developers - Visual Basic 2005 will come with the Refactor! Community Edition by Developer Express. Visual C# has quite a bit of refactoring built-in, so this isn't really a huge priority for Visual C# developers. I will be using JetBrain's ReSharper anyway, so I could really care less if Visual C# 2005 had refactoring or not :)
More and more developers are recognizing that simple, easy-to-read code is the key to application flexibility and easy maintenance. Managers are realizing that easy maintenance means low cost maintenance. If you know in your heart that parts of your code base could be better, but uncertainty about maintenance cost or concerns over breaking code have kept you from cleaning up your house, then Refactor! is for you. Refactor vaporizes barriers to code simplification, dramatically reducing the cost traditionally associated with improving, simplifying, and refactoring existing code.
- To perform an extract method, just select the block of code you want to extract, and press the Refactor Key.
- To reorder parameters, place the cursor on the type of the parameter and press the Refactor Key.
- To create a method overload, place the cursor at the start of the method declaration and press the Refactor Key.
- To reverse a conditional or replace a nested conditional with a guard clause, place the cursor on the "if" keyword and press the Refactor Key.
No other code simplification and refactoring tool is able to provide so much functionality with just one key. Refactor is the only refactoring and code simplification tool with one-key refactoring. [Microsoft]
A couple of posts on refactoring: