"I can click in Eclipse"

About 2 years ago I was handing my project over to my successor. He was younger, less experienced so apart of showing him details of project I was also giving him good advice.

I was talking about unit testing, TDD, something about design and that led me to refactoring. At the end of the session I gave him Refactoring book thinking how much I helped him.

To my big surprise he came to me next day handing book back with words "I can click in Eclipse". I was shocked, not able to react. My first thought was probably something that I misjudged him. I realized whole point only later, but then I felt it is too late to return to that for him already closed matter.

The real meaning of those words was "I don't know and I don't know I don't know.". Really - he thought that book talks only about things Eclipse can do easily. But that was huge mistake - it talks about more important things like what are code smells, how to detect them, how to achieve better design with small steps, what to do if simple refactorings fail or they don't lead to nicer result and so on.

I believe this book taught me how to work a bit differently - be less concerned about immediate appeal of code I am currently writing, because I can change it easily when bigger picture is available. That I can Extract Method later when I know what it does and how to name it correctly. I do not worry about every aspect, because I know I can change it easily. And I know what my possibilities are, so I am able to spot opportunity when it occurs. I would say that spotting opportunity when it occurs is the most important part. If all code looks satisfying/passable to me, there is no possibility for improvement. I believe it was the first book that taught me something about aesthetics in code.

Looking back to this "incident" I think I missed good opportunity to help him, but it is quite possible his ego did not allowed me to, so maybe my reaction was OK. Since then I try to be more persuative in similar situations. So if you stumble on me, trying to help you, be tolerant and patient, please :-)