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I've had a similar experience, but I keep on producing less than perfect code even for my hobby projects. What we think of as "high quality code" usually boils
by galaxyLogic 5y ago
I've had a similar experience, but I keep on producing less than perfect code even for my hobby projects. What we think of as "high quality code" usually boils down to maintainability. We like code that is easy to understand because it is easy to maintain and evolve further.
But maintainability is not an end in itself. The software also has to do what it is intended to do. That is way more important than how the code looks, in my (current) view. Therefore I write some pretty sloppy code. The reason not to write "perfect code" is also that lot of code gets thrown away at some point. Then all the effort that went into polishing it was wasted.
- dxdm 5y agoI've seen more sloppy code being kept and built upon, than any code being thrown away. Once it is sloppy, it does not get easier to make code unsloppy as time goes by. Of course, "not sloppy" does not mean perfect; but it does mean understandable, testable, maintainable and extensible.
- galaxyLogic 5y agoI agree on the importance of always striving to write not sloppy code. It is especially critical if you are building a system which must scale and must be maintained over a long time. Trying to avoid sloppy code is one of the things that can make programming a rewarding if challenging experience. > understandable, testable, maintainable and extensible. Those are all adjectives, just like "sloppy" is. So we must each make the decision as to how much effort we will invest in making code MORE understandable, MORE testable, MORE maintainable and MORE extensible. If the value of any of those properties is 0, then the code is definitely sloppy.