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A review by mzoli
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin
2.0
Good for reviewing most of clean code tips, especially dirty code smells. Well detailed and with sufficient code samples(BTW all the code samples are written in java).
But all along I had problems with accepting some of the rules at the extent that author implies. Even in my opinion some refactoring examples shown in the book were making the code harder to read compared to former state.
I think and probably the writer agrees that clean code is not some sacred thing by itself, but it serves high quality and maintainable software. So as not an experienced developer and one who never had worked on huge code bases. I think some of these rules wont serve the desired goal at least in software with small code base.
Also I think some of the rules don't apply today because we now have more intelligent code editors with better autocompletion and code hinting(showing the docs, definition, etc).
My objections are mostly on parts that the author argues the code is not clean because the lack of expressiveness. I don’t see why I should have long expressive names that any usual developer won't need that degree after a week or two working on the code base and it's not just not needing it, It makes development slower. Small functions that are only used one time won’t smooth development always.
I agree expressiveness helps new coders on first steps, but it makes old developers slower. So I think at the end it's a matter of compromise and it differs case by case. For example in the case of software driven by open source community may be the case that we should make it as easy as possible for newcomers, but when there is a software with permanent team behind it I think we should make it so they can code and work faster. They don't need expressiveness because they are struggling with the code at least every week.
An example which also will bring up what I mentioned as modern code editors is about comments. The writer emphasizes that code should not need comment and it should explain it self. I don’t get it. Now days code editors show variable, functions comments as their documentation then why we shouldn’t use one line comments instead of making the code self expressive by long names, additional functions and etc.
I don't know about others but for me long lines of code is hard to read.
But all along I had problems with accepting some of the rules at the extent that author implies. Even in my opinion some refactoring examples shown in the book were making the code harder to read compared to former state.
I think and probably the writer agrees that clean code is not some sacred thing by itself, but it serves high quality and maintainable software. So as not an experienced developer and one who never had worked on huge code bases. I think some of these rules wont serve the desired goal at least in software with small code base.
Also I think some of the rules don't apply today because we now have more intelligent code editors with better autocompletion and code hinting(showing the docs, definition, etc).
My objections are mostly on parts that the author argues the code is not clean because the lack of expressiveness. I don’t see why I should have long expressive names that any usual developer won't need that degree after a week or two working on the code base and it's not just not needing it, It makes development slower. Small functions that are only used one time won’t smooth development always.
I agree expressiveness helps new coders on first steps, but it makes old developers slower. So I think at the end it's a matter of compromise and it differs case by case. For example in the case of software driven by open source community may be the case that we should make it as easy as possible for newcomers, but when there is a software with permanent team behind it I think we should make it so they can code and work faster. They don't need expressiveness because they are struggling with the code at least every week.
An example which also will bring up what I mentioned as modern code editors is about comments. The writer emphasizes that code should not need comment and it should explain it self. I don’t get it. Now days code editors show variable, functions comments as their documentation then why we shouldn’t use one line comments instead of making the code self expressive by long names, additional functions and etc.
I don't know about others but for me long lines of code is hard to read.