Bicycle Repair Man - a Python Refactoring Browser
=================================================

Copyright (c) 2000 by Shae Erisson <shae@lapland.fi>
Copyright (c) 2001-3 by Phil Dawes <pdawes@users.sourceforge.net>

All rights reserved, see COPYING for details.

$Id: README,v 1.7 2003/08/24 19:48:43 pdawes Exp $

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bicycle Repair Man is the Python Refactoring Browser, helping
Pythonistas everywhere glide over the gory details of refactoring their
code. Watch him extract jumbled code into well ordered classes. Gasp, as
he renames all occurrences of a method. Thank You, Bicycle Repair Man!

execute ./testall.py to run all the tests

see INSTALL for installation instructions (uses distutils).

see README.idle, README.emacs etc.. for instructions on how to
integrate bicyclerepairman into supported IDEs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


What's Python? 

Python is a programming language. To find out more
about it, go to the Python Homepage at http://www.python.org/
  

What's a Refactoring Browser? 

A Refactoring Browser is an editor that automates Refactorings. The
first Refactoring Browser was written by Dr. Don Roberts and Dr. John
Brant at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champagne. Dr. Don
Roberts wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the design and implementation of the
Refactoring Browser. For more detail, read the aforementioned thesis
at http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/~droberts/thesis.pdf
  

What's a Refactoring? 

A Refactoring is a behaviour preserving change to source code. Some
Refactorings are RenameVariable, RenameClass, RenameMethod,
PullUpMethod, and PushDownVariable. Lots of people say it's very easy
to just type a different name in where your class, method, or variable
is defined. That's not always a refactoring though.  The Refactoring
Browser is smart enough to rename every reference to your class,
method or variable. If you've ever renamed a variable and broken
classes in widely scattered parts of your system, you might be happier
using a Refactoring Browser. A Refactoring Browser operates on any of
method, function, class, or variable. It can add, delete, rename, move
up down or sideways, inline and abstract. There are some operations
that are specific to one of the three types, such as abstracting a
variable into accessors, or turing several lines of code into a
separate method.

For more information on Refactoring, check out the websites of Martin
Fowler at http://www.martinfowler.com/ and his Refactoring Site at
http://www.refactoring.com/ .  


Why Bicycle Repair Man?

The Bicycle Repair Man was a superhero in a Monty Python skit, his
special power was repairing bicycles.