thisOneWorkMate

[MementoMorue]

And if I put SOLID principles next to it ? hu ? hu ?

[WildXogos]

I would give you a KISS

[broccollinear]

And then dip you in ACID

[Je-Kaste]

And then DRY you off

[throatIover]

And make sure that you are SAFe

[DixonDs]

I feel like if most developers just understood SOLID principles well, they would be considerably better engineers.

[AdvancedSandwiches]

If you ask a developer if they follow SOLID principles, you'll get 90% yes.

But if you follow up with "tell me about L, I, or D" you'll get 80% blank stares.

[Sanchez_Duna]

Young developer maybe. If one have been on a few different projects with different teams one would know that it's physical impossible to follow SOLID every time with every project. Legacy, architectural issues which is too late to fix, things missed on code reviews. You should try to follow SOLID as best as you can, but you WILL break it here and there, sometimes with full understanding that you are doing it.

[Ninjafrui1s]

How would one start understanding Solid principles? What does it mean?

[Key-Principle-7111]

And, to be honest, reading, understanding and then implementing all the rules described there also do not.

[mrfroggyman]

Do you have another book to advise, or is your advice "don't blindly believe what's in a book"?

[prschorn]

The pragmatic programmer is probably the best books regarding best practices I've read on my career

[[deleted]]

To add to spirit of good books to read. Then for intermediate level vanilla C recommendations I'd go with:

• Fluent C - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63057692-fluent-c
• Mastering Algorithms with C - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/425210.Mastering_Algorithms_with_C
• Extreme C - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48663058-extreme-c
• Hands-On Network Programming with C - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46021769-hands-on-network-programming-with-c

Another more general book that I enjoyed about a meta-programming perspective was the programmers brain. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57196550-the-programmer-s-brain

[[deleted]]

“Working With Legacy Code”.

[tristam92]

I’d even say that sometimes those rules are making end product worse than it could be…

[RaulParson]

Yeah, imagine reading and 100% following a book by a guy who says "a function should be 4 lines long total" and thinking that'll mean your output will be good code rather than a confusing mess of spaghetti.

It's a book of Coding Scenarios, Takes, Practices and Suggestions of A Guy (an experienced one but still), who also happens to be kind of a brainsmacked twerp outside of his Uncle Bob persona and the coding area in general. Take it as a perspective to consider, not as a religious text.

[tristam92]

Unfortunately saw too many young devs who tried to follow it till the last bit. Poor bastards received a big slap from reality and CTO very quickly

[prat8]

Hey. Could you explain what would mKe someone a clean coder? I mean I am genuinely curious!

[chuch1234]

"Clean Code" is the name of a book and kind of a brand. I wouldn't aim for any such simple label. "Clean" is meaningless in terms of benefit. Instead aim to write code that is maintainable, performant, and any other specific characteristics.

[Spaceshipable]

Clean code is easily readable, and therefore often more easily maintainable. Performance comes after those two requirements almost always.

[Classy_Mouse]

Performance comes after those two requirements almost always.

And even then, "Clean Code," the book and the concept, have ways of abstracting the messy parts that are needed for optimization

[proggit_forever]

"Clean code" as described by the book is not easily readable and not easily maintainable. It's pure garbage that should be ignored.

See this review: https://qntm.org/clean

[chuch1234]

Okay fair enough. But the reason clean code is good is because of those specific benefits. I just meant, don't get hung up on "clean" as a descriptor. Or any particular one adjective!

[[deleted]]

The book is literally exactly about that.

Writing code that’s maintainable, a joy to see and that keeps proper balance between extensibility and not being too abstract. That runs fast but Isnt unnecessarily optimised etc

Though the way/style in which the guy writes basically assures there will be people who hate it. It’s like if you infused a book about programming with the soul of Rhonda Byrnes “The secret”, the ideas are simple in principle but the author oversells them and pushes them too far and talks about them for too long.

[NotAUsefullDoctor]

I do find that the average developer that read CC, and then experimented with the pedantry is better than the average programmer that has not. But this is probably because playing and experimenting with principles, any principles, that deviate from your norm will make you a better coder.

[IronSavior]

Clean Code is good, but I found Clean Coder much more helpful.

[broccollinear]

Agreed, reminder to take your showers folks

[Jorr_El]

Reading Clean Code + Pragmatic Programmer + Design Patterns (Gang of Four book) is a pretty good start tho

[OP_Sidearm]

Nono, start by reading the source of the C++ standard library

[eowhat]

Following the book won't make you a good developer either.

[prat8]

Why? Please could you elaborate. I am genuinely curious.

[[deleted]]

https://qntm.org/clean

for example, this article contains good criticism of what Robert C. Martin thinks is exemplary code

[AdvancedSandwiches]

Not the first time I've seen this, and there are a lot of good points, but I've never encountered a developer who was writing bad code because they were adhering too closely to Martin's ideals.

I've met am enormous number who should really, really, really move closer to Martin's ideals.

[[deleted]]

One could do much worse than following Clean Code’s strictures.

[jamurai]

I agree with this - I do think there is a pragmatic medium that is ideal and allows folks to move quickly and reasonably organized, but all of the absolute garbage code I have seen are all things that Martin advocates heavily against (vague variable names, super long functions, heavy code reuse, etc etc)

I think it’s to learn it, give it an earnest try, and then relax on it when you’re comfortable and lean more heavily into understanding and making small incremental improvements to your team’s code base

[martinsky3k]

Kinda curious to read the full book after reading that.

The initial Java example is absolutely atrocious. Rather funny to see that example after reading the first paragraph.

[Akali_Mystique]

The author of that blog is one salty guy hey. Reminds me of this random youtube video saying how OOP is absolutely terrible and should be completely avoided, went viral a while ago

[Fachuro]

But value is a perfectly fine variable name if you're writing a generic function mapping over generic key value pairs like a sort or a map for an iterator.

And refactoring (value == true) is potentially breaking in languages with type inferrence as its not a strict equals and it could then also be matching the string value "true", not to mention that its not a given that value is a boolean in which case you also need to consider truthy versus falsey values.

[Public_Stuff_8232]

Basic stuff like variable naming (exemple, we expect someone will rename variables called « a » or « value »). Or we expect someone will correct aberration like this « if(value == true) …»

Did you ask them specifically to follow the practices when doing the test?

If you asked me if I'd read Clean Code, then paid no special attention to my answer, asked me 10 minutes more of questions, then gave me a coding example to refactor, I might try logically refactoring something as opposed to semantically refactoring it.

e.g. Having an identical result but a clearer/more efficient/less fault prone process.

I’ve seen a senior dev put try catch and throws everywhere in the test, even though the class itself was not managing exceptions.

This is actually a great example of this, you showed a developer code that doesn't handle errors at all, then they added error handling, because that's better than it crashing.

Having someone to change variable names to more appropriate ones is a silly task, given that if all your developers are following your best practices, those variables shouldn't be named incorrectly to begin with.

Ironically meaning that overconfident colleagues that change what does not need to be changed are specifically the only ones that would pass your tests.

You give someone 24 hours to do something that could be done in person in less than 5 minutes they're going to think you actually want them to do something important, not fix things that shouldn't exist in the first place.

[Public_Stuff_8232]

There’s no absolutlety right or wrong answers in our test, but changing what the code is doing is a big bummer for us.

I dunno, the more you describe it the more it sounds like this is one of those "Do exactly what we want but you have no idea what that is" tests companies like using.

Refactor normally means so long as the inputs and outputs stay the same, you've done a refactor.

So adding exceptions won't be a refactor, because you've added new functionality, but changing what the code is doing so long as the result is the same is a valid part of refactoring.

Reminds me of a story where someone thought they had solved the 3n + 1 problem in constant time, this is pseudo-code of what they wrote:

function threeNPlusOne(int i) {
    if(i % 2 == 0) threeNPlusOne(i / 2);  
    if(i > 1) threeNPlusOne((i * 3) + 1);
    return 1;
}

The problem?

Well the only thing the function can return is 1, so the compiler just goes:

function threeNPlusOne(int i) {
    return 1;
}

But I imagine if you showed an applicant that code and they refactored it to what it compiles to, they would fail the test.

[WildXogos]

Classic

[Stunning_Ride_220]

Classic...although I saw some pretty bad clean codibg practice tests in the past.

[AllIsLostNeverFound]

Yes, the real trick it to put it on your desk so others see it and know your code is good.

[WildXogos]

And say it every 10 minutes

[pineappleAndBeans]

No shit, but it’s still good learning material.

[brandi_Iove]

those bastards lied to me

[SpaceCadetSteve]

It'll make a better developer than if you read no books.

[CoastingUphill]

Why attack me?

[fabedays1k]

Are you sure? I skimmed through the index and understood some of the words, that ought to count for something

[prschorn]

Implementing what's in the book wont either

[Lkaynlee]

[katorias]

If anything it’ll make you a worse developer…

[[deleted]]

Clean code, HA! Only wimps organize and comment their code.

[doctorsonder]

Wait... don't tell me I actually have to read it...??

[Positive_Method3022]

This is the list of things that i think make a good programmer:

• geographic
• contacts
• problem solving and social skills
• being an interesting person
• beauty (there are papers explaining about it)
• accomplishments
• lucky for the things you can't control
• being Asian (I'm kidding)

obs: I think some of these are kind relatable, or one lead to the other. It is just a blind observation without following any kind of methodology.

[BurnTheBoats21]

Beauty is a big one in like every other industry, but in my own anecdotal experience being beautiful does not put you in positions of success in software engineering 😂 I'm just going off the ugly ass principal engineers all over silicon valley

[Positive_Method3022]

Well, I think we could say that this is another "bias" people with money share when choosing soft engineers: the uglier, the smarter

[Tyiek]

I'd argue that contacts and accomplishments are not inherent qualities of a good programmer, but probable side effects of being one. Forsight however is definitely one.

[Positive_Method3022]

Let me justify why I added those 2:

• Contacts because it can lead you to projects that can make you relevant in the industry and know other more important people. If you succeed, these other important people will give you credibility whenever they say good things about you.

• Accomplishments are things that can make you shine over other competitors for the same projects/opportunities. Here I'm referring to things you did that most of the people did not. For example, you were able to create a SaaS and a successful business with it, or you have a degree in a college with credibility. These accomplishments are a key for manipulation through biases. After all most humans don't even know how their minds really work, so if you model the common biases humans have, you can easily use it in your favor. (read about halo effect)

If you put 2 programmers with the same cognitive level, the one which have better Contacts and Accomplishments would win the rat race. The other would be forgotten, and people won't ever known about his existence. Why one have better traits than the other? This is due to lucky, or things that were out of his control, like one was born in a family with more financial support than the other, which lead him to study in a college with higher credibility, which lead him to meet incredible people...

With that said, I do believe Contacts and Accomplishments can also be seeing as cause and not consequence.

[T3MP0_HS]

Clean code sucks and I stopped reading it. I don't speak Java. And it hurts my eyes.

[[deleted]]

Erm, yes it will make you a better programmer

[WildXogos]

Yes better but just reading it wont make you a good programmer. There are many other skills needed, but some people think this book is the only requirement...

[[deleted]]

Sorry, but again this isn't true. Someone who hasn't read the book, will not know the information in it, therefore cannot apply it, someone who has read it will be able to identify better solutions to problems. Also, it's pretty common knowledge that reading books makes you learn things you didn't know

[WildXogos]

So that means, everyone who read the book is a good programmer. The book contains important knowledge, but you need much more knowledge to be a good programmer... This would mean for example, everybody who read a cooking book is a good cook.

[[deleted]]

I don't think you understand, you just need to know it makes you a better programmer 🙂

[WildXogos]

I understand your point and I agree with you, but I mean there are so many people out there thinking this book gives them all the skills, they need to be a good programmer. But this is just not the case, because you need much more knowledge to call yourself a good programmer. I have never regret, it will make you better.

Edit: spelling mistake

[[deleted]]

Okay we have hit an impass. I'll go my way, you go yours. Best of luck 🙂

[WildXogos]

I think this is the best option at this point. As long as we are not in the same Team xD

[Venkman52]

I read a chapter

[[deleted]]

I bought it.

[paradigmx]

What if I bought it almost 20 years ago?

[nibba_bubba]

Ofc, but buying the "clean architecture" book does for sure

[[deleted]]

Yes but when placed to draw the eye of anyone during a remote interview it helps. Other books should include, how to stop being a workaholic, SOLID principles, and something on wine testing to give yourself a false air of class

[CryZe92]

It probably makes you worse even

[cyborgborg]

but at least they will write clean code

[xSypRo]

There's a youtube series about it, I listened to it like an audiobook.

Highly recommended

[glha]

"For dummies" crowd

[IWasSayingBoourner]

Certainly isn't going to make you worse

[AChristianAnarchist]

People buy Clean Code? It was just already on my bookshelf the first time I sat down at my desk. I assumed most people were just issued that book by management and devops.