The original goal in undertaking this analysis was to help Steve's parents make an informed investment decision regarding twelve different green energy stocks. I used stock performance data from 2017 and 2018 to accomplish the analysis and provided Steve a workbook to analyze a dataset at a click of a button. After successfully performing this analysis for Steve, he wanted me to refactor the code to improve its effciency in case he ever wanted to expand the dataset to include the entire stock market. Refactoring the code will not change the contents of the code, but only improve its performance.
Stock returns in 2017 were generally very good overall despite "TERP" producing the sole negative return. Conversely in 2018, the 12 selected green energy stocks mostly had a down year, as only "ENPH" and "RUN" generated positive returns. The stock Steve's parents selected, "DQ", outperformed the other selected stocks in 2017 generating an outstanding return of 199.4%, but produced negative returns in 2018. They should be cautious in investing in "DQ" in the future.
From the images above, it is apparent that the refactoring process was a success. The refactored script lowered the execution time in both 2017 and 2018 by nearly a tenth of a second all while accomplishing the same stock analysis.
Refactoring code can be likened to proofreading an essay to make it more clear and concise. It does not change the funcitionality or purpose of the original script, however the advantages come from making the code more efficient. Making code more efficient can mean several things like making the code easier to read for other users through improving the logic of the code and taking fewer steps. Refactoring to using less memory is also a significant advantage.
Refactoring can become a disadvantage if the integrity of the code is not maintained throughout the process. Refactoring can also be quite time consuming and may not be worth the investment of time.
In this case, the script is now more efficient and can handle larger datasets, even though it took more steps to accomplish the refactor. However, the refactoring process was not a disadvantage as the refactor was well worth the investment of time and the integrity of the code was not altered.