
Readable code is not for maintenance only - fogus
http://giorgiosironi.blogspot.com/2009/10/readable-code-is-not-for-maintenance.html
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trebor
I pity people with memory like this.

Unlike the author, I don't forget the code I wrote yesterday and can still
explain and understand it. It takes several months for the meaning of my
normal code to slip my mind. Maybe I'm just different ... but I even find that
going back and relearning my code easy too.

(Not that I write particularly obtuse code, or never comment upon anything.)

~~~
kaitnieks
I agree. Even when I had just started Pascal after early childhood years of
ZX-Spectrum basic, even when I wrote a game that consisted of one huge block
of code and the only reason I had to split it in 2 procedures called Dog1 and
Dog2 is because Pascal compiler started to complain about main code block
being to large - even then I was never puzzled by my own code.

Sadly I have lost the source now. I'm sure it's an epic and hilarious mess.

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axod
>> "Even your code, after six months, becomes a stranger to you. Especially if
you have improved your coding skills meanwhile, the implementation will be
very hard to grasp at a glance."

Maybe this is true when you're just starting out programming. In the early
days when you're still discovering big things.

But once you've been doing it for years you're likely to change less, and have
settled on styles that work for you.

