4 ms·

Seriously, how often do you say to yourself, "I think I'll dive into this messy code today and try to make it nice and pretty without adding any functionality?"

by neilc 18y ago

Seriously, how often do you say to yourself, "I think I'll dive into this messy code today and try to make it nice and pretty without adding any functionality?" Maybe I'm just weird, but I do that all the time. Nobody is going to pay you for that. Sure they will: refactoring and code cleanup is a commendable activity at plenty of competent software shops.

snprbob86 18y ago
You're not weird. Or at least you are no weirder than me. I sometimes enjoy refactoring more than writing new code. Deleting code, in particular, is pretty much my favorite professional activity.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  Unacknowledged type-B procrastination? :-) http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
  - snprbob86 18y ago
    Maybe. However, I haven't really regretted it yet. I always regret type A. I do a lot of it. I'd like to think I am pretty good at type C...
apsurd 18y ago
+1 I'm on your side too. A benefit of "cleaning house" is that it does not take as much planning/thought as actually creating new code so this allows me to turn up my favorite music, get into a nice groove, and have at it...now that's what I call a good Friday night!
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
joe_the_user 18y ago
Well, Using Test Driven Development is a new thing. I find that using it, I now can clean-up code as I go along. I have one cycle for implementing new features and one cycle for clean-up currently. But it took learning TDD to be able to do that. And it took extreme programming for SOME shops to see the value in this. The trick is finding those shops.
psyklic 18y ago
You are weird ;-) I actually agree with the author on both points. There just isn't a good way of measuring how you use your time refactoring and cleaning code, when you could be fixing bugs or adding features (both of which are always-present). Hence, it's difficult to justify too much time in "beautification" if your code works, even at competent shops. At some point, all of us just need to get the code out, so we must all strike a reasonable point between beauty and reality. On the first point, I release a fair bit of code into the public domain. Even though I do make it nice and pretty as I code, it always takes additional beautification work before I'm ready to release it to the world (i.e. better commenting, code structure, or documentation). I'm pretty sure it takes a rare programmer with a lot of free time and great experience in the domain to actually have beautiful code at the conclusion of a project.
- scott_s 18y ago
  Constant refactoring makes it easier for me to add new features. The first time I get something working, I often don't have the perspective to know how the best way to organize or abstract it. If I didn't go back and clean that up, it would be significantly harder for me to add on new features.
schtog 18y ago
I do that all the time. I like the Dijkstra quote: "Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure. " I also think it is a great way to become a better coder to refactor programs until you think it is perfect or close to rather than just make it work and then leave it because then you will never get better than that.
jcromartie 18y ago
I do enjoy it, but as I gain more experience in building software for other people I have realized that they usually don't appreciate it. Corporate development sees this sort of activity as a liability. You can break things quite easily when you "correct" something. Poorly-written software tends to have tight coupling all over. Many parts of a system may depend on the "broken" definition of a function. Some things are just too broken to be tackled by this approach. My current environment is much more receptive to this kind of activity, though.

by neilc 18y ago

snprbob86 18y ago

You're not weird. Or at least you are no weirder than me. I sometimes enjoy refactoring more than writing new code. Deleting code, in particular, is pretty much my favorite professional activity.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
kirubakaran 18y ago
Unacknowledged type-B procrastination? :-) http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
- snprbob86 18y ago
  Maybe. However, I haven't really regretted it yet. I always regret type A. I do a lot of it. I'd like to think I am pretty good at type C...

apsurd 18y ago

+1 I'm on your side too. A benefit of "cleaning house" is that it does not take as much planning/thought as actually creating new code so this allows me to turn up my favorite music, get into a nice groove, and have at it...now that's what I call a good Friday night!

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

joe_the_user 18y ago

Well, Using Test Driven Development is a new thing. I find that using it, I now can clean-up code as I go along. I have one cycle for implementing new features and one cycle for clean-up currently. But it took learning TDD to be able to do that. And it took extreme programming for SOME shops to see the value in this. The trick is finding those shops.

psyklic 18y ago

You are weird ;-) I actually agree with the author on both points. There just isn't a good way of measuring how you use your time refactoring and cleaning code, when you could be fixing bugs or adding features (both of which are always-present). Hence, it's difficult to justify too much time in "beautification" if your code works, even at competent shops. At some point, all of us just need to get the code out, so we must all strike a reasonable point between beauty and reality. On the first point, I release a fair bit of code into the public domain. Even though I do make it nice and pretty as I code, it always takes additional beautification work before I'm ready to release it to the world (i.e. better commenting, code structure, or documentation). I'm pretty sure it takes a rare programmer with a lot of free time and great experience in the domain to actually have beautiful code at the conclusion of a project.

scott_s 18y ago
Constant refactoring makes it easier for me to add new features. The first time I get something working, I often don't have the perspective to know how the best way to organize or abstract it. If I didn't go back and clean that up, it would be significantly harder for me to add on new features.

schtog 18y ago

I do that all the time. I like the Dijkstra quote: "Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure. " I also think it is a great way to become a better coder to refactor programs until you think it is perfect or close to rather than just make it work and then leave it because then you will never get better than that.

jcromartie 18y ago

I do enjoy it, but as I gain more experience in building software for other people I have realized that they usually don't appreciate it. Corporate development sees this sort of activity as a liability. You can break things quite easily when you "correct" something. Poorly-written software tends to have tight coupling all over. Many parts of a system may depend on the "broken" definition of a function. Some things are just too broken to be tackled by this approach. My current environment is much more receptive to this kind of activity, though.