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> if it suggested any way to measure the "understandability" of code. There's no reason to measure it, just don't let people merge difficult-to-understand code

> if it suggested any way to measure the "understandability" of code. There's no reason to measure it, just don't let people merge difficult-to-understand code into the codebase. The best comment you can leave on a PR is always, "I don't understand this, please rewrite it." People hate hearing it, they'd much prefer it if you'd show them some new trick or something, but that's not nearly as valuable to the company or whatever.

frankandstein 6y ago
I’d be really annoyed if someone said “I don’t understand this” and immediately jumped to the conclusion of “rewrite it”. It’s reasonable to assume there are times that complex problems require complex solutions. Saying “this code feels like it could be simpler, have you tried x?” would accomplish the same goal without the aggressive and lazy tone imo.
- Alex3917 6y ago
  I get your point. Obviously you shouldn't gratuitously be a dick to people, and I was being a little bit flippant with my phrasing. On the other hand, being able to understand the code is an extremely low bar, and if you're writing code that other people can't understand then at best it shows a lack of basic respect for your coworkers, and at worst it's a form of employee theft from your employer. If you sent in an article to a magazine as a freelancer and the editors didn't understand what you were trying to say, then you probably wouldn't even get a response. And if you did it repeatedly they'd probably block your email address. Obviously no one is going to immediately intuitively understand a 1,000 character regex. But I'm sure we've all seen people who have treated basic CRUD apps like obfuscated C competitions.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> There's no reason to measure it, just don't let people merge difficult-to-understand code into the codebase. The problem is that it ends up saying more about the maintainer than about understandability. Is object oriented program hard to understand? Is C with manual memory management hard to understand? Are genetics hard to understand? Is functional style programming hard to understand? Is SIMD hard to understand? Is code that uses linear algebra hard to understand? Different people, and even the same person over time, will have different answers to these questions.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  All true. But given a team with some mix of backgrounds and talents, some code is going to be easier to understand than other code. Write the code the way that is easier for the team to understand. Write it for the team you have, not for posterity or to impress random people on message boards on the internet.

frankandstein 6y ago

I’d be really annoyed if someone said “I don’t understand this” and immediately jumped to the conclusion of “rewrite it”. It’s reasonable to assume there are times that complex problems require complex solutions. Saying “this code feels like it could be simpler, have you tried x?” would accomplish the same goal without the aggressive and lazy tone imo.

Alex3917 6y ago
I get your point. Obviously you shouldn't gratuitously be a dick to people, and I was being a little bit flippant with my phrasing. On the other hand, being able to understand the code is an extremely low bar, and if you're writing code that other people can't understand then at best it shows a lack of basic respect for your coworkers, and at worst it's a form of employee theft from your employer. If you sent in an article to a magazine as a freelancer and the editors didn't understand what you were trying to say, then you probably wouldn't even get a response. And if you did it repeatedly they'd probably block your email address. Obviously no one is going to immediately intuitively understand a 1,000 character regex. But I'm sure we've all seen people who have treated basic CRUD apps like obfuscated C competitions.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> There's no reason to measure it, just don't let people merge difficult-to-understand code into the codebase. The problem is that it ends up saying more about the maintainer than about understandability. Is object oriented program hard to understand? Is C with manual memory management hard to understand? Are genetics hard to understand? Is functional style programming hard to understand? Is SIMD hard to understand? Is code that uses linear algebra hard to understand? Different people, and even the same person over time, will have different answers to these questions.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
All true. But given a team with some mix of backgrounds and talents, some code is going to be easier to understand than other code. Write the code the way that is easier for the team to understand. Write it for the team you have, not for posterity or to impress random people on message boards on the internet.