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Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

davidamos.dev

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Re: Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

#21

Post by hardwaregeek »

This seems perfectly reasonable advice. However I do wonder how many people actually struggle with this sort of code quality. It's certainly more than a few, since I've encountered bad code with these issues. But it's not exactly the most pressing issue either. As the author demonstrated, you can refactor this with a little thought. It's the code equivalent of tidying your room, sweeping the floors and putting your stuff away.

Whereas the refactoring issues I'd love to learn more about are the equivalent of a sinkhole in your living room. Stuff like "you have data dependencies that go in, out, left, right, and through the code", or "the codebase is a mishmash of React combined with Vanilla JS that is hooked up to a custom PHP MVC". Basically refactoring that involves issues that cannot be cleaned up all at once, that involve deep architectural decisions and that require some amount of buy-in from the team.

Mostly I'd like to know more about this because I've realized that I'm not very good at it. My inclination is to just refactor everything and that's not a feasible strategy. I also struggle to balance it with getting feature work done. Definitely something I plan on reading more about.

Re: Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

#22

Post by artemonster »

I always liked the quote "you need to be twice as smart to debug a code. If you write smart code, you, by definition, cannot debug it" (sorry I have no idea who said this). This is why I still code in C. No smartass bullshit, just plain old undefined behaviour and out of bounds access. Lovin it.

Re: Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

#23

Post by artemonster »

retrocryptid wrote: post #3

in the example given, I started with 10 things to keep in working memory. now that we've added a named function or a named variable, we have 11. I suggest it is at least as important to name things well (or add comments) as it is to break lines up.

You forgot a KEY property of a function: this is an abstraction. You don't (and in most cases shouldn't) care how this "black box" does what it does, you identify it by the name and move on. So a function collapses N things to understand to 1, not how you have described it.

Re: Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

#26

Post by RajT88 »

I have written a lot of Powershell in the last few years. I eschew the clever powershell ways of doing things if someone else may end up owning it (think: where-object, foreach-object) in favor of expressions that resemble other languages (foreach, for).

If I'm writing it for myself, and only ever myself, I'll use the more clever powershell ways of doing things. Expressions like:

1..10 | % {$_}

If you're coming from another language, you're going to have to run it to understand it, or look it up. That is time lost.

Re: Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

#27

Post by jstimpfle »

noncoml wrote: post #15

We break everything down and then we reach one of the most difficult problems in software engineering: Coming up with good and short names for all these extra intermediate variables and functions.

Typically, relatively unspecific names like "i" or "size" are good enough. It's better than not naming at all and producing a complicated expression tree instead. More specific names cost energy, both inventing and reading them (because they are typically longer). Err on the side of short and not too specific.

Re: Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

#28

Post by RajT88 »

standardUser wrote: post #18

I see a troubling trend with some coworkers where they seem to stretch the limits of time and space to make every line as dense as possible, usually using lodash. I think it is a point of pride for them, but I think it's obvious that everyone's life would be easier if they just wrote their code out "long form" and, god willing, added some comments for various steps. Instead, I find myself having to re-write ultra-den…

I had a professor who did that. He'd write a solution to the assignments he was giving us, and then spend another 5-8 hours on it trying to make it fit on a single overhead slide.

He was a much beloved professor.

Re: Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six

#30

Post by professorTuring »

standardUser wrote: post #18

I see a troubling trend with some coworkers where they seem to stretch the limits of time and space to make every line as dense as possible, usually using lodash. I think it is a point of pride for them, but I think it's obvious that everyone's life would be easier if they just wrote their code out "long form" and, god willing, added some comments for various steps. Instead, I find myself having to re-write ultra-den…

It is not new, it’s been ages since some developers try to show off by bringing “cool” one liners to solve problems. Stretching operators, bringing up imaginative uses for lambda expressions or kind of abusing parts of the language to make some other teammate or reviewer, What did you make there?

I believe, definitely, that they are quite intelligent people that know a lot about the language or maths, but definitely they are not usually making the smartest choice, because you should use “languages” in order for the people to understand you.

So you can call those: “50 cent expressions”

They help no one but their ego…

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