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Posted 8 days ago · 39,786 reads
Readability is not about clever code or terse syntax. It's about making the intent of the code obvious to the next person who reads it—which might be you, six months later, having forgotten everything.
Most of the code we write is not rocket science. It's ordinary business logic, wrapped in layers of frameworks and abstractions. Sometimes the simplest implementation is the best.
Know your tools deeply.
Type systems don't prevent bugs—they just catch certain categories of bugs earlier. The real benefit is the documentation they provide about what a function is supposed to do.
Legacy code is called legacy for a reason. It works. It's been tested in production. It's often the most reliable code in your system, even if it doesn't follow modern conventions.
APIs are contracts. Once you publish one, changing it becomes expensive for everyone who depends on it. The cost of breaking changes compounds over time, which is why the boring, conservative choice is usually the right one.
Type systems don't prevent bugs—they just catch certain categories of bugs earlier. The real benefit is the documentation they provide about what a function is supposed to do.
Terminal emulators are primitive tools compared to modern IDEs, but they force a certain discipline. You can't rely on auto-completion and syntax highlighting to write code for you; you have to understand what you're writing.
Know your tools deeply.
APIs are contracts. Once you publish one, changing it becomes expensive for everyone who depends on it. The cost of breaking changes compounds over time, which is why the boring, conservative choice is usually the right one.