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How to go from writing code that works to writing efficient, clean code and following good practices? (programming.dev)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Besides some of the very, very obvious (don't copy/paste 100 lines of code, make it a function! Write comments for your future self who has forgotten this codebase 3 years from now!), I'm not sure how to write clean, efficient code that follows good practices.

In other words, I'm always privating my repos because I'm not sure if I'm doing some horrible beginner inefficiency/bad practice where I should be embarrassed for having written it, let alone for letting other people see it. Aside from https://refactoring.guru, where should I be learning and what should I be learning?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It depends on what type of programming you’re doing.

But for OOP, my favorite patterns are composition over inheritance and dependency injection (with constructor injection). Once you know these two the rest will follow naturally, and your programs will turn more modular and easier to maintain.

One common misconception about dependency injection is that you need a framework for it. That’s not the case. Frameworks only make some stuff more convenient, but you can do without it.

Otherwise, I think the best way to learn is by doing. It’s easier to see why a pattern is important when you have first hand experience of how painful it is without it.

Edit: Avoid the book “Clean Code”. That book has just done more harm than good in the world.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I agree on doing. I don't think I've ever picked up a good coding practice by reading about it and doing it, I'm just not wired like that. Not that I didn't read good coding practices, but most of them I dismissed as overkill... until later when I realized that while working to reverse engineer and cleanup my old, ugly, code, I had independently "invented" a lot of those practices that I had originally dismissed.

That's the test right there imo, you can't really know how bad your code is until you've been away from it long enough to no longer have memory of your intentions on your side. "Wtf is this variable for again? When I figure it out I'll rename it to be more descriptive". "What? This function is doing way more than it's name implies. Tf was I thinking?"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

For people reading this thread later on, this post and this post elaborate a little more on why to avoid the book "Clean Code".