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s/web/software/ s/internet/everything/ I can't tell you how many times I have to reteach myself this lesson. I'm not advocating for writing sloppy/bad code on

s/web/software/ s/internet/everything/ I can't tell you how many times I have to reteach myself this lesson. I'm not advocating for writing sloppy/bad code on purpose but I fall into the trap way too often of trying to make my code a work of art or overly-clever. No one cares, don't spend twice the time to try to abstract something within an inch of its life. Write working code and move on. Once you've done something 4, 5, 10, 15 times then you can look for an abstraction. Really I think I use refactoring or "stressing over the best way" really to just be a way to procrastinate and tell myself I'm doing something useful or dare I say noble. Of course in practice it's often neither.

downerending 7y ago
Agree, though I'd add s/many games/the world/g
nmfisher 7y ago
Agreed, I think it's important to bear in mind the "time value of code". Some code may very well be "set and forget" - you write it once and noone ever looks at it ever again. If a project is allocated 100 days, why invest even 1 of those refactoring and polishing code that really doesn't need it? The difficulty, of course is knowing which code is 'set and forget' and which isn't. I usually avoid refactoring until you hit the same "how does this work again?" wall at least three times.
cjfd 7y ago
Sounds more like too little care rather than too much. Of course it also depends on how much maintenance is going to occur on that code. I think in production code one should already look for an abstraction if something is done twice. The goal is not to create a work of art or an abstraction that stands the test of time. It is just to remove some duplication, distribute code a little better over functions, give things names that are somewhat better and so on. If one does a bit of that every day one is never going to be in a horrible mess. One problem is that people sometimes think that refactoring is all or nothing. You either refactor nothing or you go all the way to adhere exactly to design patterns. Neither of these two extremes produces very good code. The middle way is where the good code is.
- pure-awesome 7y ago
  I used to think that if something is done twice, it should be abstracted. Now, I'm a bit more careful. There's a pretty famous quote by Sandi Mentz: "Duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction." https://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstraction https://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstracti... Make sure that you're picking the write way to think about the task at hand, rather than blindly following DRY. There are times when even a single instance of a code call would be made clearer with abstraction, and there are times where having the same piece of code duplicated multiple times (or duplicated with one piece changed) is far clearer than trying to abstract it. This Reddit Comment also has an interesting take: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5txp5t/duplication_is_far_cheaper_than_the_wrong/ddq5ykf https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5txp5t/duplica... > The main purpose of abstractions is not to remove or reduce duplication, and not even to make code "reusable"; it is to make semantic patterns and assumptions explicit and, if possible, first-class. The further comments provide more discussion. --- I agree with the rest of your comment that refactoring and code-cleanup should be done in pieces and that, as with everything, striking the right balance is key.
  - cjfd 7y ago
    If there is any article that I absolutely hate it is 'Duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction'. A somewhat minimal abstraction has very little chance of being wrong. And if it is wrong, is it really that difficult to know? It has a chance of needing some improvement, but what code does not have a chance of needing some improvement? If one goes the full monty and introduces three design patterns every time that two lines are duplicated sometimes one will certainly end up with, perhaps, not so much the wrong abstraction as an overly convoluted one. This acticle is the excuse for programmers everywhere not to fix their messes. It is 100% opposite to what programmers need to hear.
    - mcphage 7y ago
      > It is 100% opposite to what programmers need to hear. Maybe you know very different programmers than I have known, but if I had to compare what has been a bigger source of problems—missed abstractions, or abstractions that make things more difficult for no benefit, it's definitely bad abstractions almost every time.
commandlinefan 7y ago
> I'm not advocating for writing sloppy/bad code on purpose Well, if the “ugly” code works the same as the “pretty” code, but the ugly code can be developed faster than the pretty code, then you should definitely prefer the ugly code: in fact, if this is the case, the ugly code should be considered state-of-the-art because it can be written faster. Since we all accept that the pretty code takes longer, it had better pay for itself in some way. The theory is that the pretty code is easier to maintain over time: it takes longer up front, but when it comes time to make a change, since the code is so maintainable, the change is easier to make. Although that makes intuitive sense, I can’t say that that’s been my experience; in 30 years of software development, I’ve never come across code that’s particularly easier to make changes to than any other. I’ve tried to take maintainability into account when I’m writing code myself, and I can’t even think of a time when I had to make a change and found that my foresight saved me time and effort. It doesn’t help much that none of us agree on what “good quality” code looks like: everybody seems to call all code “bad”. I’ve I’d like to see software development advance a bit in terms of professionalism where we at least agree on the principles of high-quality software code, and the principles are objectively defensible in terms of what the cost/benefits of following them are.

downerending 7y ago

Agree, though I'd add s/many games/the world/g

nmfisher 7y ago

Agreed, I think it's important to bear in mind the "time value of code". Some code may very well be "set and forget" - you write it once and noone ever looks at it ever again. If a project is allocated 100 days, why invest even 1 of those refactoring and polishing code that really doesn't need it? The difficulty, of course is knowing which code is 'set and forget' and which isn't. I usually avoid refactoring until you hit the same "how does this work again?" wall at least three times.

cjfd 7y ago

Sounds more like too little care rather than too much. Of course it also depends on how much maintenance is going to occur on that code. I think in production code one should already look for an abstraction if something is done twice. The goal is not to create a work of art or an abstraction that stands the test of time. It is just to remove some duplication, distribute code a little better over functions, give things names that are somewhat better and so on. If one does a bit of that every day one is never going to be in a horrible mess. One problem is that people sometimes think that refactoring is all or nothing. You either refactor nothing or you go all the way to adhere exactly to design patterns. Neither of these two extremes produces very good code. The middle way is where the good code is.

pure-awesome 7y ago
I used to think that if something is done twice, it should be abstracted. Now, I'm a bit more careful. There's a pretty famous quote by Sandi Mentz: "Duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction." https://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstraction https://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstracti... Make sure that you're picking the write way to think about the task at hand, rather than blindly following DRY. There are times when even a single instance of a code call would be made clearer with abstraction, and there are times where having the same piece of code duplicated multiple times (or duplicated with one piece changed) is far clearer than trying to abstract it. This Reddit Comment also has an interesting take: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5txp5t/duplication_is_far_cheaper_than_the_wrong/ddq5ykf https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5txp5t/duplica... > The main purpose of abstractions is not to remove or reduce duplication, and not even to make code "reusable"; it is to make semantic patterns and assumptions explicit and, if possible, first-class. The further comments provide more discussion. --- I agree with the rest of your comment that refactoring and code-cleanup should be done in pieces and that, as with everything, striking the right balance is key.
- cjfd 7y ago
  If there is any article that I absolutely hate it is 'Duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction'. A somewhat minimal abstraction has very little chance of being wrong. And if it is wrong, is it really that difficult to know? It has a chance of needing some improvement, but what code does not have a chance of needing some improvement? If one goes the full monty and introduces three design patterns every time that two lines are duplicated sometimes one will certainly end up with, perhaps, not so much the wrong abstraction as an overly convoluted one. This acticle is the excuse for programmers everywhere not to fix their messes. It is 100% opposite to what programmers need to hear.
  - mcphage 7y ago
    > It is 100% opposite to what programmers need to hear. Maybe you know very different programmers than I have known, but if I had to compare what has been a bigger source of problems—missed abstractions, or abstractions that make things more difficult for no benefit, it's definitely bad abstractions almost every time.

commandlinefan 7y ago

> I'm not advocating for writing sloppy/bad code on purpose Well, if the “ugly” code works the same as the “pretty” code, but the ugly code can be developed faster than the pretty code, then you should definitely prefer the ugly code: in fact, if this is the case, the ugly code should be considered state-of-the-art because it can be written faster. Since we all accept that the pretty code takes longer, it had better pay for itself in some way. The theory is that the pretty code is easier to maintain over time: it takes longer up front, but when it comes time to make a change, since the code is so maintainable, the change is easier to make. Although that makes intuitive sense, I can’t say that that’s been my experience; in 30 years of software development, I’ve never come across code that’s particularly easier to make changes to than any other. I’ve tried to take maintainability into account when I’m writing code myself, and I can’t even think of a time when I had to make a change and found that my foresight saved me time and effort. It doesn’t help much that none of us agree on what “good quality” code looks like: everybody seems to call all code “bad”. I’ve I’d like to see software development advance a bit in terms of professionalism where we at least agree on the principles of high-quality software code, and the principles are objectively defensible in terms of what the cost/benefits of following them are.