An experimental investigation on the innate relationship between quality and refactoring
We mined and manually validated over 12,000 refactoring operations. We verified if refactoring occurs on classes having poor quality as indicated by code metrics. We verified whether refactoring occurs on classes affected by bad smells. With very few exceptions, quality metrics do not show a clear relationship with refactoring. 40% of the refactorings was performed on classes affected by smells, but just 7% removed the smell.
refactoring code smells empirical study