Bad Smells: Unnecessary complexity

“Everything should be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”

— Albert Einstein

Unnecessary code complexity can present itself in the following bad smells:

• Dead Code
• Speculative Generality

Follow the principle YAGNI (You Aren’t Gonna Need It).

Dead Code

To do

Remove unused code and associated tests.

Rewards

• Reduce the size.
• Improves communication.
• Improve simplicity.

Contraindications

Do not delete code that can be used to support clients even if it is not used within your framework.

Speculative Generality

To do

• For unnecessary classes:
  • If parents or children in the class seem like the right place for the behavior, put it inside one of them with Collapse Hierarchy.
  • Otherwise, put it inside the caller with Inline Class.
• For unnecessary methods, use Inline Method or Remove Method.
• For an unnecessary field, make sure there are no references to it and delete it.
• For an unnecessary parameter, use Remove Parameter.

Rewards

• Reduce the size.
• Improves communication.
• Improve simplicity.

Contraindications

• Do not delete code that can be used to support clients even if it is not used within your framework.
• If some elements are used by the tests and give them privileged information about the class, it may be an indication that you are not taking into account an abstraction that you can test independently.