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There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

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Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#151

Post by dt3ft »

dtech wrote: post #110
dt3ft wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't comment out code, just remove I hate commented out code, but this doesn't work in every situation. While working on a clinical information system, we had frequent "please bring it back" requests that came a few months after things were removed (also by request). Relying on source control is nice, but unless you document every feature/removal or use very extensive commit messages, finding the code that was rem…

Seems garbage advice to me. Now you've polluted your production code, likely forever. I don't see a situation where using an issue tracker + good commits - e.g. 1 commit for the 1 PR linked to the ticket that removes the feature - won't result in a superior situation from a maintenance and traceability perspective.

Sure, in a normal world. But with 2 devs in team, handling a clinical information system in very rapidly changing environment (new features), there is no time to document things in this way.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#152

Post by baobabKoodaa »

andruby wrote: post #65
ahmaman wrote: post #29

Clean code is code that does what you expect it to do without many surprises. It is simple, not clever. Effortless to follow. Each part handles one idea at a time, at the same abstraction level. Doesn't force you to mentally juggle many balls at the same time. The code often tells you a story, it communicates how the programmer (author) described the problem, the solutions and the trade-offs. Very similar to writing.…

“Effortless to follow” is eloquently put. When I interview candidates during recruiting I often ask the open ended question “what is good code for you” as it gets people talking. There is rarely a wrong answer. Usually, there is a difference in answers between more junior and more senior programmers. More senior candidates focus more on the readability & maintainability, while more junior programmers focus on accurac…

> When I interview candidates during recruiting I often ask the open ended question “what is good code for you” as it gets people talking. There is rarely a wrong answer.

I don't mean to be snarky, but if there is rarely a wrong answer to this question, then it doesn't sound like a good interview question to me. Having been through a bunch of interviews, I don't understand the obsession over clean code. I would understand it better if these questions helped pass/fail candidates or rank candidates (to help decide salary or position inside company). But it doesn't seem to be the case. It seems like the feel-good talky-talk over clean code in interviews is nothing but a waste of time (with "rarely a wrong answer").

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#153

Post by skohan »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #135

So True ! After 25+ years of coding, I know one thing. I STILL don't know how to "code correctly". And apart from a few gifted individuals (Rob Pike, Fabrice Bellard Bobby Bingham [ffMpeg team] etc) I'm HIGHLY suspicious of ppl and programmers who claim "they can program correctly" and that "this xyz is the correct way/stack/method/arch". Background:CS grad, start coding at around 13 (thank you dad !) I am well verse…

The more code I've written, the less I care about code quality.

I think the things I could point to in my coding practice which would make the code I write now better than the code I wrote 10 years ago would be:

- I minimize interdependencies (changing a line of code should not affect something un-related)

- I go for abstractions later, only when I need them, rather than trying to think of the perfect abstraction/design pattern which will solve the problem in the most elegant or clever way

Besides that, I'm a huge fan of disposable code. In my experience 99% of the time, the best approach is to just dive into the problem and try to solve the problem in the most pragmatic way. Maybe that's hard-coding a lot of things. Maybe that's having a small amount of repetition here and there. Maybe it's writing one long function with 1000 lines.

After that it's all about continuous improvement. You spend your time solving the problem, and when your code becomes hard to work on, you spend time improving your code to make it easier to work on by cleaning things up, and adding sensible abstractions which solve the problems you actually have.

In my experience, over time this approach leaves you with a very ergonomic and easy to understand codebase.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#154

Post by skohan »

bojan wrote: post #146
rawoke083600 wrote: post #135

So True ! After 25+ years of coding, I know one thing. I STILL don't know how to "code correctly". And apart from a few gifted individuals (Rob Pike, Fabrice Bellard Bobby Bingham [ffMpeg team] etc) I'm HIGHLY suspicious of ppl and programmers who claim "they can program correctly" and that "this xyz is the correct way/stack/method/arch". Background:CS grad, start coding at around 13 (thank you dad !) I am well verse…

> PS2. Oh and on 'code reviews': It would be cool if code-reviews were done "anonymously" i.e I should not know until the very end WHO wrote the code. Helps to keep any personal biases at bay - my 2cents. This is a generally good idea, but in small teams it can't really work. Code is in that sense a bit like handwriting, everyone has their own style, and after a long enough time in a small team you learn to recognize…

My biggest problem with code reviews is that they are so often without value. Code review should be a chance for teams to learn from each other, catch issues, and align on coding practices and strategies. In my experience, a lot of the time code reviews are either just a task - where people try to find superficial "mistakes" just to tick a box, or worse a chance for certain colleagues to power trip and try to get other team members to submit for it's own sake.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#155

Post by codeptualize »

Wow! Great article, and I love to see so many people agreeing with it.

I think most clean code stuff is snake oil and fortune telling.

So much time gets wasted in pointless discussions and tweaks that will make no difference whatsoever.

The funny thing to me is that the bigger picture; actual logic and bugs, often gets missed while all the attention is focussed on stupid "clean" little pet peeve topics.

It does seem there is shift, more and more articles and opinions like this and I'm here for it!

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#156

Post by edwnj »

Na this is just semantics.

There is clearly ugly code and clean code.. And generally speaking, ugly code is structured in a non obvious manner that can range from the specific implementation to naming..

Its a spectrum and after a certain point what is ugly/clean is very subjective but this is where semantics kicks in. Other than the occasional heated arguments, most teams can agree on what is ugly vs what is acceptable/subjective.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#157

Post by rawoke083600 »

stavros wrote: post #144
rawoke083600 wrote: post #135

So True ! After 25+ years of coding, I know one thing. I STILL don't know how to "code correctly". And apart from a few gifted individuals (Rob Pike, Fabrice Bellard Bobby Bingham [ffMpeg team] etc) I'm HIGHLY suspicious of ppl and programmers who claim "they can program correctly" and that "this xyz is the correct way/stack/method/arch". Background:CS grad, start coding at around 13 (thank you dad !) I am well verse…

Does e.g. Fabrice Bellard code "correctly"? Getting shit done isn't the same as "coding correctly" (sometimes it's very close to the opposite).

True - who can say ? Hard to argue with a WHOLE career that got "shit done" and WIDELY used by the world ?

Maybe THAT is the metric to focus on. The value of the code versus the quality ? I honestly don't know the answer ?

But I know how much of my "time and energy (as you get older you released the limiting step is your cognitive-energy not so much your actual wallclock-time) " I spent on "trying" todo code correctly which many times it means, the code doesn't get done and I end up frustrated by not shipping anything.

Working for a boss, the above used to upset me a bit. Now working for myself this REALLY upsets me and my 'income' :)

In these cases, I would DEF liked to have "Fabrice" getting shit-done-coding ability ? Again just my humble opinion :)

Maybe coding is like a marriage... a) "You can be right or you can be happy :)"

Squinting hard enough: b) "You can do things correctly or you can ship code in time that makes a difference ?"

I guess the "better" you are the closer the extremes are from "b". i.e IF you are the theoretical-best-coder-that-ever-lived there is should be no "distance/friction" between "coding correctly AND shipping on time code that has an impact" ??

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#158

Post by rawoke083600 »

asimpletune wrote: post #145
rawoke083600 wrote: post #135

So True ! After 25+ years of coding, I know one thing. I STILL don't know how to "code correctly". And apart from a few gifted individuals (Rob Pike, Fabrice Bellard Bobby Bingham [ffMpeg team] etc) I'm HIGHLY suspicious of ppl and programmers who claim "they can program correctly" and that "this xyz is the correct way/stack/method/arch". Background:CS grad, start coding at around 13 (thank you dad !) I am well verse…

I love your story. Also: > >I try to optimize my code around reducing state, coupling, complexity and code, in that order. I'm willing to add increased coupling if it makes my code more stateless. I'm willing to make it more complex if it reduces coupling. And I'm willing to duplicate code if it makes the code less complex. Only if it doesn't increase state, coupling or complexity do I dedup code. That's beautiful ad…

>That's beautiful advice. Something similar that I heard was "flow of data > dependencies > interfaces", in terms of what to worry about. Interesting how they're so similar but from different sources.

Maybe that is clue they/we are on the right track ? Coming to the similar conclusion from different angles ? :)

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#159

Post by tluyben2 »

antris wrote: post #5

Coding is a highly subjective and creative endeavor. "Clean code" is akin to "well written" for writers. Sure, you can analyze and even be able to define some good practices, but because we are always creating something new that has never done before, and the field is infinitely complex, no rules can be set in stone and applied across everything. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with calling code clean, we don't h…

Like writing, code gets better with mulling over most parts (for a long time) and rewriting a lot after insights were properly formed. When you start something, you are exploring; how can you expect that that code will be anywhere close to an ideal situation that time? People say refactoring but in my opinion that is not radical enough; you will be able to redo problems you encountered by maybe completely re-architecting the solution. This luxury is not really a thing many people can afford ofcourse; we just make stuff work well enough to get paid. And it shows.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#160

Post by skohan »

edwnj wrote: post #156

Na this is just semantics. There is clearly ugly code and clean code.. And generally speaking, ugly code is structured in a non obvious manner that can range from the specific implementation to naming.. Its a spectrum and after a certain point what is ugly/clean is very subjective but this is where semantics kicks in. Other than the occasional heated arguments, most teams can agree on what is ugly vs what is acceptab…

Disagree. I feel like I have seen this play out a number of times in my career:

- New engineer joins a team with a mature codebase

- New engineer complains about code quality, convinces management on a total rewrite to improve code quality

- New codebase starts out simple and elegant

- Eventually the codebase gets just as bulky and convoluted as the old one, because the ugliness was just a reflection of the complexity of the problem space

A lot of times "ugly" is just a stand-in for "not written by me"

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