Ever tweak a rule and suddenly touch 7 classes, 4 configs, and 3 tests? That’s the “shotgun surgery” code smell 💥🧯
🔸 TL;DR
When a single, simple change forces edits across lots of places, your design is leaking responsibilities. Group related behavior together and refactor so one change means one edit. 🧩
🔸 What it looks like
▪️ A feature toggle or business rule scattered across controllers, services, helpers
▪️ Repeated constants/if-else logic in multiple modules
▪️ Similar edits repeated in several microservices/repos
▪️ A new field requires touching DTOs, mappers, validators, and SQL in many spots
🔸 Why it happens
▪️ Violation of Single Responsibility (concerns spread thin)
▪️ Anemic domain model (logic lives in edges, not the core)
▪️ Cargo-cult layering (“everything must pass through every layer”)
▪️ Copy-paste or “just one quick fix” over time
🔸 Why it hurts
▪️ Slower delivery ⏳ and higher risk of missing a spot
▪️ Brittle code: a “tiny” tweak causes regressions 🐞
▪️ Hard to onboard: knowledge is fragmented 🧠
🔸 How to fix (pragmatic refactors)
▪️ Consolidate change hotspots: move logic to a single owning module/class
▪️ Extract Module/Class for a cohesive policy (pricing, eligibility, routing, etc.)
▪️ Encapsulate conditionals behind strategy/state/policy objects 🎯
▪️ Use domain events to notify, not duplicate, reactions across the system
▪️ Co-locate data + behavior (stop scattering rules across DTOs/mappers)
▪️ Create anti-corruption layers at boundaries to avoid spreading mapping rules
▪️ Write characterization tests first, then refactor safely ✅
🔸 Takeaways
▪️ Aim for “one change → one edit in one place.”
▪️ Organize by feature/domain, not framework layers alone.
▪️ Invest in small, continuous refactors—future you will thank you. 🙏
#CodeSmell #Refactoring #CleanCode #SoftwareDesign #Maintainability #TDD #DDD #SoftwareArchitecture #DevEx #Programming
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