RefactorFirst

This tool for Java codebases will help you identify the God Classes you should refactor first. The graph generated in the report will look similar to this one:

There are several ways to run the analysis on your codebase:

From The Command Line

Run the following command from the root of your project (the source code does not need to be built):

mvn org.hjug.refactorfirst.plugin:refactor-first-maven-plugin:0.1.0:report

As Part of a Build

Add the following to your project in the build section:

<build>
    <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.hjug.refactorfirst.plugin</groupId>
            <artifactId>refactor-first-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>0.1.0</version>       
        </plugin>
        ...
    </plugins>
</build>

As a Report

Add the following to your project in the reports section:

<reporting>
    <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.hjug.refactorfirst.plugin</groupId>
            <artifactId>refactor-first-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>0.1.0</version>       
        </plugin>
        ...
    </plugins>
</reporting>

Viewing the Report

Once the plugin is finished executing (it may take a while for a large / old codebase), open the file target/site/refactor-first-report.html in the root of the project. It will contain a graph similar to the one above, and a table that lists God classes in the recommended order that they should be refactored. The classes in the top left of the graph are the easiest to refactor while also having the biggest positive impact to team productivity.

Additional Details

This plugin will work on both single module and multi-module Maven projects that have a typical Maven project layout.

This tool is based on the paper Prioritizing Design Debt Investment Opportunities by Nico Zazworka, Carolyn Seaman, and Forrest Shull

Limitations

• This plugin has only been confirmed to work with Java 8 projects at this time.
• There isn't much logging (yet).
• My time. This is a passion project and has been done in my spare time.

Feedback and Collaboration Welcome

There is still much to be done. Your feedback and collaboration would be greatly appreciated in the form of feature requests, bug submissions, and PRs.
If you find this plugin useful, please star this repository and share with your friends & colleagues and on social media.

Future Plans

• Improve logging.
• Move from JUnit 4 to Junit 5. Junit 5 is lacking the support for temporary files that JUnit 4 provides.
• Use Maven's Guice to autowire dependencies.
• Add a Gradle plugin.
• Incorporate Unit Test coverage metrics to quickly identify the safety of refactoring a God class.
• Incorporate bug counts per God class to the Impact (Y-Axis) calculation.
• Incorporate more disharmonies from Object Oriented Metrics In Practice (Lanza and Marinescu, 2004).
• Support Java 11

Thank You! Enjoy!