Lazy Element

A Lazy Element is an element that does not do enough. If a method, variable, or class does not do enough to pay for itself (for increased complexity of the project), it should be combined into another entity.

Causation

This smell can happen due to the aggressive refactorization process in which the functionality of a class was truncated. It can also occur due to the unnecessary pre-planning - Speculative Generality - developer made it in anticipation of a future need that never eventuates.

Problems

Increased Complexity

Projects complexity increases with the number of entities.

Example

class Strength:
    value: int

class Person:
    health: int
    intelligence: int
    strength: Strength

class Person:
    health: int
    intelligence: int
    strength: int

Refactoring:

• Inline Class
• Inline Function
• Collapse Hierarchy

Sources

• [Origin] - Martin Fowler, "Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code" (1999)