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I think as professionals many of us like to take pride in our work. A natural way to do that is for code to be "clean". The problem, as I see it, is that this i

by d4mi3n 4y ago

I think as professionals many of us like to take pride in our work. A natural way to do that is for code to be "clean". The problem, as I see it, is that this is often a subjective metric and what we take pride in doesn't always align with what delivers tangible value to an organization (a point you alluded to). Clean code can bring tangible value, but big rewrites taken on for that goal can often not. I personally try to be more pragmatic--what is valuable depends a lot on context and the point in life of a particular project+team+organization. Sometimes the most valuable thing is to ship a messy code that works to get the ball rolling or prove viability of an approach. Other times it's to make sure what you deploy is bullet proof to avoid liability or expensive downtime. The value of clean code will be reflected by your team and organization's needs at that point in time.

ornornor 4y ago
> what is valuable depends a lot on context and the point in life of a particular project+team+organization. For sure, and I only target companies or teams that are mature, struggle to move forward because code quality grinds things down to a halt, and that express the desire for improvement there. However, there are very few companies that 1. Even have the awareness to realize this is where they’re at, and 2. Actually mean it. I’ve been passed over many times in favour of someone else who ships code quickly and cheaply by lowering quality. Every place I’ve ever worked at, quality is the least concern in relation to the others. Now for a startup that has limited runway and has to find product market fit for example then it’s totally different. Focus rightly is on shipping stuff at the expense of quality because survival is on the line. In a few years, once this company has made it, they’ll look for someone to clean their codebase up. My broader question though is whether I should keep branding myself as a “code cleaner”. Despite a (minority) of companies advertising positions for that skill, my experience has been that the vast majority simply don’t care. And those that do, don’t actually care all that much. It’s a struggle though because I get no satisfaction from shipping low quality code and eventually end up quitting out of boredom or frustration. I’m now at a point where I’m considering doing something entirely different from programming because I can’t derive any job satisfaction from writing low quality code and the resulting constant firefighting that results from it.
- jahewson 4y ago
  Any organisation with messy code doesn’t care about clean code - sure, they may regret it, they may wish it would magically go away, but if they cared then they wouldn’t have allowed all the dirty code to pile up. The only organisation in which your work will be valued is one in which the code is already clean.
  - ornornor 4y ago
    Interesting insight. I’ve never come across such an organization though. There are a handful that I think are in this spot where quality has mattered since day one but they’re so popular that I don’t stand a chance to even get noticed when applying in a sea of thousands of applicants. They also don’t hire very often. And they’re very hard to find because what do you even search for? The ones I know, I found empirically through word of mouth, reputation, or just plain randomness by stumbling upon.

by d4mi3n 4y ago

ornornor 4y ago

> what is valuable depends a lot on context and the point in life of a particular project+team+organization. For sure, and I only target companies or teams that are mature, struggle to move forward because code quality grinds things down to a halt, and that express the desire for improvement there. However, there are very few companies that 1. Even have the awareness to realize this is where they’re at, and 2. Actually mean it. I’ve been passed over many times in favour of someone else who ships code quickly and cheaply by lowering quality. Every place I’ve ever worked at, quality is the least concern in relation to the others. Now for a startup that has limited runway and has to find product market fit for example then it’s totally different. Focus rightly is on shipping stuff at the expense of quality because survival is on the line. In a few years, once this company has made it, they’ll look for someone to clean their codebase up. My broader question though is whether I should keep branding myself as a “code cleaner”. Despite a (minority) of companies advertising positions for that skill, my experience has been that the vast majority simply don’t care. And those that do, don’t actually care all that much. It’s a struggle though because I get no satisfaction from shipping low quality code and eventually end up quitting out of boredom or frustration. I’m now at a point where I’m considering doing something entirely different from programming because I can’t derive any job satisfaction from writing low quality code and the resulting constant firefighting that results from it.

jahewson 4y ago
Any organisation with messy code doesn’t care about clean code - sure, they may regret it, they may wish it would magically go away, but if they cared then they wouldn’t have allowed all the dirty code to pile up. The only organisation in which your work will be valued is one in which the code is already clean.
- ornornor 4y ago
  Interesting insight. I’ve never come across such an organization though. There are a handful that I think are in this spot where quality has mattered since day one but they’re so popular that I don’t stand a chance to even get noticed when applying in a sea of thousands of applicants. They also don’t hire very often. And they’re very hard to find because what do you even search for? The ones I know, I found empirically through word of mouth, reputation, or just plain randomness by stumbling upon.