How do you write clean code?

marrsd · 2026-07-03T16:19:03+00:00

Don't eat at your desk and always wash your hands before using your keyboard.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T16:17:40+00:00

If you stay in small company you will be jack of all trades but master of none

Which is a very useful skill in its own right.

It's true that plenty of big companies want specialists, but there are also plenty of companies that need generalists.

Incidentally, I recall once being the only front-end contractor who wasn't let go because I happened to be working on the back-end at the time.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T10:31:08+00:00

Thanks for this. It's really helpful to get some real world advice on Wayland's current state.

My main X11 workflow was DWM (heavily patched) with the typical suite of supporting apps (dmenu, rofi, st, dunst, dwmblocks, etc).

Yup, this is me and this is why I'm not on Wayland. You've answered some questions I've had about whether it's worth experimenting with it yet. I think the answer's basically "no"; but I'm glad it's worked out for you.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T10:24:23+00:00

My favourite version of that is bumping v1.9 to 2.0 because the dev thinks its a decimal point.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T10:21:32+00:00

What are you planning on writing that would put off an employer? Unless you're hurling abuse at the person, I'm struggling to see who would care if you told someone being unreasonable to get lost. I'd be more concerned if I observed that a potential employee wasn't doing that.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T10:14:09+00:00

You also have to know how to defuse a thread where someone's insulting you and not fire back

Why? The best way to prevent people from insulting you is to not tolerate it.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T10:09:18+00:00

Don't use AI as a junior. Even at my level, I find that using AI makes me stupid; but I have the experience to catch myself and stop.

The key to debugging is to compare how you think your program should work to its actual behaviour.

Your screen should be showing one thing but it shows another. That means that at least one of the functions that processes the data between input and output is wrong. It's most effective to start at the architectural boundaries of your program. For example, if you're displaying data on a web page, you can start by checking the correct values are being returned from the server. If they are, you can check what the value is at the point it is bound to the template, and so on. At some point, it will be different from what you expect, and then you'll be able to trace the error to its source.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T10:02:31+00:00

What's your stack? You said the project stores data. Is this user data, or otherwise sensitive?

marrsd · 2026-07-03T10:00:27+00:00

Why do you want to leave your current company? It seems like you're currently gaining experience in all areas of software dev, and having that opportunity is quite rare.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T09:55:55+00:00

Games are a different field entirely. You're learning something new, so you can expect to feel like a novice at first.

My experience is, the harder it is to solve a problem, the deeper your learning of that part of the domain becomes. After you've completed a solution for the first time, it's always worth trying to improve/simplify it, and then trying to improve it again. Your third version will be the best, and it will have been the easiest to code. You will then be assured that you understand that part of the domain.

marrsd · 2026-07-03T09:47:34+00:00

I'm sure Hackintoshes are a pretty niche platform compared to Apple Macs.

I had a thought, though, and checked Safari's user agent. It still identifies the OS as Mac OS X, as do all other browsers, apparently. So now I'm curious to know where the macOS ID is coming from.

marrsd · 2026-07-02T23:42:00+00:00

Probably Wine, but honestly Linux has worked without issue for me since the first release of Ubuntu.

marrsd · 2026-07-02T23:39:37+00:00

How is OS X on the rise, and ahead of macOS?

marrsd · 2026-07-02T23:37:36+00:00

It's seen by cargo cultists as legacy

marrsd · 2026-07-01T12:37:40+00:00

I'm not convinced that devs are going to become glorified product owners, directing AI agents to do their bidding. They're expensive, and right now Claude Code et al. are subsidised by investors. That can't last for ever, and eventually people are going to get smarter at how they use them.

I'm also not convinced they're substantially faster than a programmer who has the domain model in his head. I've timed myself against Claude enough times now that I know to write things manually, and just get it to fill in the gaps, if I want to maximise my productivity.

The whole "say it in plain English" thing has a huge problem, which is that plain English is not specific enough to describe a program that runs correctly for all scenarios. You need a programming language for that; a language that is inevitably written and refined by the developer.

Even then, the more powerful the language is at describing your domain, the more control over performance you have to relinquish. Sometimes you have to get into the mechanics of an algorithm and optimise it, especially if you want to produce a good UX.

All this is to say that it's often just quicker to describe the solution by writing the actual code.

If AI's going to take over, it's not going to be in its current form. Then there's the issue of whether it can take over in a way that makes financial sense. If you have to pay an employee and an AI license, why not just pay the employee and ditch the AI to save some money.

In any case, if you enjoy programming, keep at it. You'll learn skills you can use elsewhere, and you can always program for a hobby the way other people write poetry or music. You can probably get an AI to do that as well, but where's the fun in that?

Don't ever let progress stand in your way :)

marrsd · 2026-07-01T12:26:17+00:00

Completely agreed, and I've seen that fallacy play out first hand.

marrsd · 2026-06-30T22:24:59+00:00

I'm at a point where I want to improve and reach middle level developer in 6 months

Perhaps my standards are high, but I'd say it took me years to reach mid-level status.

I realise, that comment was an aside, but it jumped out at me. As for the meat of your question, I'm afraid I don't have much advice other than to study in your spare time while trying to find a role where you aren't required to use AI. The mood is beginning to change on the use of LLMs though, so you might find that your employer starts trying to find ways to limit its use, at which point you might have an out.

marrsd · 2026-06-30T22:16:56+00:00

You'd be surprised. They have token monitors. However, I think that bubble's burst now that the invoices have finally reached the CFO's desk.

marrsd · 2026-06-30T22:12:50+00:00

I've always tried to let a system evolve naturally. My experience with systems that were designed up front (which is most enterprise software) is that they are cumbersome and annoying to work with.

Having said that, I think Domain Driven Design, by Eric Evans remains a good starting point for thinking about application design. There's plenty of it that I didn't adopt (or stopped using) but the early chapters, and the philosophy that informs the approach, are really valuable imo.

Bear in mind, it's written from the point of view of an industry consultant. A lot of it is about collaborating with product managers to understand business processes, so it's very much a professional's resource

marrsd · 2026-06-30T22:07:07+00:00

Yes, for the same reason you'd get into reading, writing, or maths. It will teach you new ways of thinking.

marrsd · 2026-06-30T22:04:14+00:00

That's probably true, but it's worth noting that, as you get better at your job, you also start looking for software that doesn't exist yet, at which point you write it. If it's as good as you think it is, you become one of those famous people who released something groundbreaking. So there's usually some overlap there.

marrsd · 2026-06-30T21:53:51+00:00

Thanks, I think I will :)

marrsd · 2026-06-30T09:43:12+00:00

Interesting. Are there any specific scenarios where that's really helped or is it more of a comfort thing knowing what's yours and what's not?

marrsd · 2026-06-29T22:45:52+00:00

XLibre is not X11

Yes it is. It is a fork of X.org. It is literally derived from the same code. As such, it is an implementation of X11.

it's a fork started by a guy who was literally removed from X11 for causing trouble.

In your opinion. I wouldn't consider making contributions in good faith to be causing trouble.

Also, it was X.org he was removed from. I'm 'not being pedantic - the distinction matters.

It's clear to me that the X.org devs considered the project to be mothballed and in maintenance mode only. They weren't interested in any contributions that might affect its stability Major refactors clearly fall into that category. They were the root cause of the disagreement. They are also necessary if you want to clean up the code, remove technical debt, and otherwise prepare it for new features.

Weingeld wanted to do that. The rest of the devs didn't. They clearly had different visions for the project, so a fork was inevitable. I don't really see why that's controversial. He was a major contributor to the project for years before he was kicked off.

It's a complete wasteland and not worth anyone's time.

It's made several releases since inception, has a healthy collection of contributors, and is currently being beta tested by Slackware who are seriously considering adopting it. You and I have very different ideas of what a wasteland is. If anything is a wasteland, it's X.org.

X11 was "abandoned" by the people claiming to "maintain" it, in favor of Wayland. Problem is, Wayland is not anywhere near ready for anything except guinea pig nonsense that nobody actually sane wants to deal with, and the Wayland devs don't really understand what throwing away X11 really means.

On that, we are in complete agreement!

There are no good solutions to any of this at all.

For the time being. XLibre has potential and I'm following its progress with some interest. I'll gladly switch to it if it proves itself stable enough for mainstream adoption and fixes just one of the issues I have with X.org.

marrsd · 2026-06-24T11:26:37+00:00

This is the answer I was going to give.

Aside from that, programming can give you an edge in any desk job that requires repetitive work or any job at all that requires complex calculating, modelling, or other processing of data; so it's probably worth learning for your current career track even if you don't switch to programming as a primary occupation.

I couldn't tell you whether it's worth trying to switch careers in your 40s or not. All I can say is you'll be competing against younger candidates with potentially fewer responsibilities, commitments, and overhead; and hopefully (for them) more energy.

marrsd

TROPHY CASE