Composite Refactorings: The Next Refactoring Rubicons

The industry crossed the first refactoring rubicon, namely Extract Method, more than a decade ago. Today, all mainstream Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) support this refactoring, and empirical studies have shown that Extract Method is one of the most frequently used automated refactorings. Although complex refactorings are more tedious and error-prone, studies have shown that programmers use the automated refactorings mostly for performing simple changes. We argue that new interaction models are needed to support high-level composite refactorings. Because of the challenges involved in automating such complex refactorings, we consider composite refactorings as the next refactoring rubicons.unpublishednot peer reviewe