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Nobody cares about your clean code

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Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#21

Post by gfodor »

StavrosK wrote: post #13
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #7

"throw the first one away" When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, I don't write tests, I don't comment/document much, I use lots of shitty variable/type names, lots of commented out code, debugging printfs, not much organization of files (often one large file). The prototype software is write-once, read-maybe. Maybe I'll want to see what I did down the road, but more likely I'll be shortly rewriting what…

When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, it eventually becomes production. I cannot relate to people who make prototypes to throw away, I've never done it, and I don't know why I'd do it. Due to that, I write my first line of code as if it's going to be on production forever, because it will.

I rarely prototype but the scenarios where I do are in the game engine context where I’m trying to hack together a real time graphics algorithm, meshing algorithm, etc. The difference between a one second and 15 second iteration time is meaningful.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#22

Post by cutler »

Remoteok.io is a refreshing **ck you to all the over-engineered barely-more-than-static sites rigged-up with the latest version React hook form packaged up in Docker ready to be deployed on Kubernetes. People, we need a movement which embodies this sentiment.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#23

Post by learningwebdev »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #7

"throw the first one away" When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, I don't write tests, I don't comment/document much, I use lots of shitty variable/type names, lots of commented out code, debugging printfs, not much organization of files (often one large file). The prototype software is write-once, read-maybe. Maybe I'll want to see what I did down the road, but more likely I'll be shortly rewriting what…

I'm still teaching myself full-stack web development but I've worked on a couple of projects with a friend who has a great amount of skill and experience. I was slightly horrified to see the kinds of haphazard and occasionally mildly crude comments he was putting in code and git commits, especially since I am very much a perfectionist, but... he gets the job done, and he gets it done well.

I think a good team or a good partnership comes from finding one or more other people whose strengths offset your weaknesses and vice versa.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#24

Post by mannykannot »

aae42 wrote: post #5
whoomp12342 wrote: post #2

yarp. we dont love clean code for the user, that should be obvious for anyone who has written a medium amount of code. we love clean code for the fact that some day, we are going to have to read our code, trace it for a bug... etc. You can feature bloat something up to a certain point and then.... kaboom goes the rewrite. Hopefully into clean code, but usually not since clean code is a culture and mindset, not a code…

yea, but isn't the obvious logical conclusion that clean code allows you to more easily and more quickly do things that the customers do want? this is like telling a mechanic that people don't want them to maintain their cars, they just want a reliable car that won't leave them stranded also, why does a php and jquery app mean it isn't clean? the better takeaway is that customers don't care about your stack

It's not quite that simple: it is not unusual for an overall-clean solution in response to new requirements to require refactoring the existing codebase, even if that is a clean and minimal solution for the requirements up to that point.

Even if you had anticipated that these additional requirements were likely, preparing in advance for their possibility would often mean over-engineering for the initial requirements, which would likely delay the initial release.

If there wasn't a genuine conflict of interests here, we would not still be wrestling with it.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#25

Post by StavrosK »

gfodor wrote: post #21
StavrosK wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, it eventually becomes production. I cannot relate to people who make prototypes to throw away, I've never done it, and I don't know why I'd do it. Due to that, I write my first line of code as if it's going to be on production forever, because it will.

I rarely prototype but the scenarios where I do are in the game engine context where I’m trying to hack together a real time graphics algorithm, meshing algorithm, etc. The difference between a one second and 15 second iteration time is meaningful.

Do you throw that code away and start over when you're done prototyping?

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#26

Post by gumby »

If you can do a single page app with no frameworks you definitely should do so!

If you have a large complex system, making it clean up front (i.e. by deployment) means someone a few years from now will appreciate the work.

As for the single page app: when (if!) you want to upgrade it, just rewrite it wholesale. Until then it's creating value as it is.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#27

Post by altitudinous »

This is very true.

END USERS in particular do not give a rats about clean code or the number of code reviews that have been done. They only care that it works. Technical debt, refactoring, reuse? Nobody cares except developers. The paying customer is all that matters.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#28

Post by pansa2 »

StavrosK wrote: post #13
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #7

"throw the first one away" When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, I don't write tests, I don't comment/document much, I use lots of shitty variable/type names, lots of commented out code, debugging printfs, not much organization of files (often one large file). The prototype software is write-once, read-maybe. Maybe I'll want to see what I did down the road, but more likely I'll be shortly rewriting what…

When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, it eventually becomes production. I cannot relate to people who make prototypes to throw away, I've never done it, and I don't know why I'd do it. Due to that, I write my first line of code as if it's going to be on production forever, because it will.

> I cannot relate to people who make prototypes to throw away, I've never done it, and I don't know why I'd do it.

When I'm at the prototyping stage, I don't yet know how to solve the problem. That means I need to iterate quickly, which affects my choice of language (Python) and the amount of time I'm willing to spend keeping code clean (very little, because I could hit a dead-end at any point).

But once I have a working prototype of a solution, my users need it in the form of a fast, standalone binary, and my colleagues need code that can be easily understood. This requires using a different language (C++) and more disciplined coding practices. The only way to get this is to rewrite for production, and then "throw away" the prototype.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#29

Post by geofft »

StavrosK wrote: post #13
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #7

"throw the first one away" When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, I don't write tests, I don't comment/document much, I use lots of shitty variable/type names, lots of commented out code, debugging printfs, not much organization of files (often one large file). The prototype software is write-once, read-maybe. Maybe I'll want to see what I did down the road, but more likely I'll be shortly rewriting what…

When I'm prototyping or hacking something together, it eventually becomes production. I cannot relate to people who make prototypes to throw away, I've never done it, and I don't know why I'd do it. Due to that, I write my first line of code as if it's going to be on production forever, because it will.

Then write your code as if someone's going to throw production away - which generally means writing documentation (design docs, good commit messages, comments on the tricky parts of the code, API contracts between components, etc.), so that if someone thinks they want to to reimplement production, that decision can stand on its own merits.

All of the worst production systems I've worked with are systems where people are running code from many many years ago because they don't know what it does and are scared to touch it.

Write one to throw away, even - perhaps especially - if it goes into production. Write production to throw away.

Re: Nobody cares about your clean code

#30

Post by userbinator »

zelon88 wrote: post #12

I think it's ironic that the author claims that clean code is....... Package your code down into small, atomic and reusable units Follow the single responsibility principle Use frameworks and libraries to avoid reinventing the wheel Whatever language you pick, don’t pick PHP These are best practices. It is possible to follow every one of those rules and still have a pile of broken, insecure, garbage code. Likewise yo…

That's partly the reason why the term "best practice" has become a bit controversial in some communities --- it's seen as mindless dogmatic cargo-culting. I've heard the saying "best practices are best not practiced" from the opposition.

There is nothing more frustrating than working on a codebase that puts 12 lines of code in each file and then spreads that code into 1,000 files.

In other words, "Enterprise" code, which is in my experience usually designed more to hit all the "best practices", and often according to the opinion of some idiotic tool (as in computer program, although sometimes a person too...), than do anything sanely.

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