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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

#271

Post by gilbetron »

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've got about a decade more of coding over you and I can confirm the same. The only time you see "clean code" is trivial examples. Get a project that needs to do something complex, and suddenly it becomes not so clean. That's because the real world is messy and complex and solutions are almost always the same.

I love your priority list, although I'm scratching my head over the order - not that it is wrong, but I don't know if it is exactly what I would do. There are cases where I will take more state to be (a lot) less complex, for instance. Big surprise that even that priority list is a bit messy ;)

I think the most damning thing about Clean Code is that the author has barely written any software for decades. I mean, I like the guy well enough, and he has some ok stuff to say, but he is far from someone people should listen to like a messiah. Go listen to Carmack or watch Jonathan Blow's code stuff. Far more interesting things there.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#272

Post by ozim »

skohan wrote: post #153
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/des…

I love "ergonomic code" expression and after years of coding I see it as much better term to strive for than "clean code".

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#273

Post by ziml77 »

rhdunn wrote: post #120
yakubin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you follow them you will end up with code that's really nice to read and easier to maintain, and, most importantly, that you can confidently change. I found that a lot of those guidelines lead to the exact opposite. Examples: - Prefer polymorphism to if/else or switch/case (oh, the joy of tracing a simple task through 50 files) - Use dependency injection (same as above) - Hide internal structure (that "private"…

> One assert per test I read that as "one operation per test". Specifically, both: assertEqual(complex(1, 2) + complex(3, 5), complex(4, 7)); and: auto c = complex(1, 2) + complex(3, 5); assertEqual(c.re(), 4); assertEqual(c.im(), 7); would both satisfy that requirement, but: assertEqual(complex(1, 2) + complex(3, 5), complex(4, 7)); assertEqual(complex(1, 2) + complex(-3, -5), complex(-2, -2)); would not. -- In that…

Your interpretation is a saner way to write tests, but I saw no indication that's what he meant. If it was what he meant, then he should have made it clearer. It's not like he couldn't have added an extra couple pages with an explanation and examples.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#274

Post by skohan »

sseagull wrote: post #245
gefhfffh wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When start off with "wrong" higher level design concepts, neither of those is trivial. If you're writing a function implementation without thinking about design, well you might be right.

I sometimes wonder if there is a miscommunication. I’m scratching my head sometimes like “how can rewriting/refactoring an entire 10-20k project take negligible time?” Maybe some people have very small projects compared to what I work on? Or maybe they are talking about the design of a single small component? I inherited a codebase that needed some refactoring because it was written “to just get it shipped”. If compl…

But how often would you actually have to rewrite an entire 10-20k LOC project at once?

As you need to add functionality, you can opportunistically find ways to improve the codebase toward a better/more maintainable structure.

I have several large codebases I work on which probably get totally rewritten every 18 months or 2 years, however incrementally.

If you have a working project and you think you need to throw it all out and start from scratch probably it's worth a second thought.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#275

Post by ziml77 »

cerved wrote: post #206
yakubin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you follow them you will end up with code that's really nice to read and easier to maintain, and, most importantly, that you can confidently change. I found that a lot of those guidelines lead to the exact opposite. Examples: - Prefer polymorphism to if/else or switch/case (oh, the joy of tracing a simple task through 50 files) - Use dependency injection (same as above) - Hide internal structure (that "private"…

> Prefer polymorphism to if/else or switch/case (oh, the joy of tracing a simple task through 50 files) If this is arduous it may be worthwhile to change your dev environment

I can hit F12 or Ctrl-Click to navigate to definitions and I get a back button to return to where I was across those navigation operations. Yet it still sucks to bounce through all those files. And it's usually not just a matter of drilling down through the calls, but also moving back up to find out how a dependency of a class that I've ended up in is initialized.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#276

Post by wirthjason »

This reminds me when learning to write papers in college my professor would help proof my paper. I Had clarity in my thoughts but it didn’t translate to paper. We would evaluate the paper line by like. I would often use the phrase “X is better than Y”. He would stop me and ask, “why is X better?”, and I would give a more precise meaning.

I like how the author applies the same idea to “clean”. Rather than just blankety apply clean he suggested expounding on the reason why it’s cleaner.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#277

Post by tacitusarc »

I think many of the qualities mentioned have nothing to do with “clean” code (like performance).

My metric for cleanliness has become simpler over the years: Mean Time To Comprehension. The less time it takes for someone else (or future me) to understand how and why my code does what it does, the cleaner that code is. This is surprisingly accurate and actually useful.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#278

Post by jerf »

I've taken to looking at the first derivative of code quality rather than the zeroth. I don't necessarily sit and worry about the absolute, current quality of my code; rather, I strive to ensure that every time I do something, I'm generally improving the quality of the code rather than degrading it.

If this sounds trivial, you may be underestimating the extent to which your fellow developers, and, perhaps even you, casually "spend" code quality to attain something in the short term. It's even little things, like adding the 7th parameter to a function that has become what really ought to be three distinct functions in one (very common problem). Adding that seventh parameter is degrading the quality of the code yet further. Working out what you need to do to extract the three separate functions out correctly, and propagating that back to all callers, is improving the quality of the code.

We like to look at the sweeping refactorings, but a lot of times, it's very little things, as small as "Hey, I understand this variable better now that I've been in the function for the third time this month and it ought to have a better name, let me go ahead and use the IDE rename feature now". The quality of your code is much more determined by the sum total of all those little decisions than the big refactorings.

You also don't have to "maximize" your positive impact at any given point and do all the possible improvements. That's paralyzing. Just make sure every interaction is just a bit positive, and the cumulative impact is huge.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

#279

Post by ziml77 »

ajuc wrote: post #81
mpweiher wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm...polymorphism is almost invariably simpler than if/else or switch/case, so not seeing the contradiction.

I've seen this happening a lot: - you have the same if-then-else in 3 places in code with 3 different effects - you refactor it to polimorphism (Enum with a few overloaded methods works well in java) - now one of these places need additional condition so you make it a little more complex - year passes - you have eldritch abomination of OOP instead of 3 if-then-elses with slightly different conditions because at no po…

Exactly my experience with polymorphism. It starts out looking super clean but then the business requirements shift and each has its own edge cases that turn it into a giant mess, often ending up as a mix of both polymorphism and convoluted if statements.
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