Why your code sucks

02 Oct 2004

I read an interesting article by Dave Astels the other day titled “Why Your Code Sucks</a

”

In it, Dave discusses numerous (6) reasons why, to put it bluntly, your code may suck.

One interesting point that is brought up, and confirmed by Steve McConnell (whose Code Complete 2ed sits beside me half read), is that code should be convi
enent to read, not necessary convienent to write.

Often times its a struggle to convince developers, even myself included, to take the extra 5 minutes so ensure a degree of readability. We don’t necessary
want novels but readilibity leads to understanding and understanding leads to better decisions being made down the road. Failing to put 5 minutes in at an
early stage could create significant backlog further down the road. Time is valuable and having to ask someone else about their code is twice as costly.

It’s a good (short) read and I’d recommend it.