G'day:
Slightly lazy article, this one. This is basically some thoughts I jotted down in the Working Code Podcast Discord channel. Then I decided there was almost enough there to make an article, so why not drop it here too.
In the most recent episode ("057: Goals for 2022"), the team mentioned they'd seen/read an article about Clean Code: "It's probably time to stop recommending Clean Code".
Right. So that flies in the face of what my usual position is on Clean Code: every dev ought to have read it, and it should strogly influence one's code.
But, OK, I'm open to an opposite opinion so I read it. Here's what I said on the Discord chat:
I read the "It's probably time to stop recommending Clean Code" article and a lot of the comments until they all got a bit samey.
I wanted to disagree with the article, but I found a bunch of it fair enough. However I think there was a bit of false equivalence going on with the author's analysis in places.
It seems to me that their issue was with the code samples (which, TBH, I paid little attn to when I read the book), which were pretty opaque at times, and not exactly good examples of what the narrative was espousing. It was a few days ago I read it, but I don't recall them having specific issues with the concepts themselves?
I s'pose the writer did raise a vocal eyebrow (if one can do that) regarding the notion that the cleanest method has zero parameters, and each additional param increases the smell. They recoiled in horror at the idea of every method having zero paramaters, as if that's just ridiculous (which it is, but…). But I also think they then used that as a bit of a strawman: I don't think Martin was saying "all methods must have zero params or they smell therefore don't have parameters or else", he was just defining a scale wherein the more params there are, the more the code is likely to be smelly. A scale has to start somewhere, and zero is the logical place to start. What else was Martin gonna say: methods should aim to have one parameter [etc]"? No. That's more daft. Zero is the right place to start that scale. I don't think that's bad guidance.
I also think they didn't seem to "get" the guidance about flag parameters. Whether that's Martin's fault for not explaining it, or their fault for not getting it: dunno. It's not really a "apportioning blame" thing anyhow. I just didn't think their disagreement with it had much merit.
Oh and there was also some stuff about only using Java for code examples, and it was all OOP-centric and nothing about FP. To me that's kinda like condemning Romeo + Juliet as a work because it doesn't mention Hamlet even once.
I also kinda wondered - given I don't think the article really made its case - whether there was some sort of "it's trendy to put the hate on RC Martin these days" going on. But... nothing demonstrable in the content of the article to suggest that's accurate. However I was not the only person left wondering this, based on the comments.
(FWIW I think Martin's a creep, always have; but it's simply ad hominem to judge his work on that basis)
So. Should we still be recommending Clean Code? Is it's guidance "right"?
I think - as with any expert guidance - it's great to take verbatim when you are new to said topic, and can't make an informed opinion on it. And as one becomes familiar with the situations the guidance addresses, one might begin to see where things are perhaps grey rather than black or white. But one needs to have the experience and expertise first, before deciding to mix one's own shades of grey.
For my part: my advice stands. If one is unfamiliar with Clean Code as a concept, then one really ought to read it. Once one is familiar with it, then - fine - consider thinking about when its advice might not be most appropriate. Perfect. That's what you ought to be doing.
Simply seeing guidance on "black" and going "I don't even know what 'black' is so I think 'white' is better. I know about 'white'" is just a dumb-arse attitude to have. Learn about black, understand how it's not white, and then once that's nailed, start deciding when things might better be grey.
Anyway, I know there's not much context there: I don't quote from the article I'm talking about at all. But I think you should go read it and see what you think. Don't take my word for anything, Jesus.
And I will reiterate: if you have not read Clean Code, do yerself a favour and go read it. Don't worry that Martin's not flavour-of-the-month social-awareness-speaking these days. I really do think most of the guidance in Clean Code is worth knowing about.
There were a coupla other books recommended in the comments. I'll not recommend (or otherwise) them myself until I've read them, but I have a bit of a reading queue ATM.
Anyway, this article was lazy as fuck, wasn't it? Oh well.
Righto.
--
Adam
