The dark side of clean code: when over-engineering hurts your project
Deep Vadukiya
MERN Stack | Building Scalable Web Apps | Open Source | Headless Browser | Passionate About Clean Code & User-Centric Design
ever felt like youre spending more time making your code "clean" than actually solving problems ...? youre not alone ...! ??
as developers, weve all heard the good advice of clean code. "make it readable!" "dry (dont repeat yourself)!" "abstract everything!" but heres a truth bomb: sometimes, too much cleaning can make a bigger mess ...
when clean code goes wrong
let me share a real story. few months back, i had to fix a "simple" bug in our login system. simple, right? wrong! the previous developer had turned a 50 line authentication flow into a beautiful, abstract, 500 line masterpiece. it was so "clean" that it took me almost single day just to understand how everything connected!
finding the sweet spot
Heres my simple rule: If your junior developer needs a map to understand your "clean" code, its probably not that clean ...!
what actually works:
the real definition of clean code
clean code isnt about fancy patterns or zero repetition. Its about code that:
remember: your code doesnt need to win a beauty contest. it needs to solve problems ...
?? pro tip: always ask yourself, "will this abstraction make our next feature easier or harder to build ...?"
what do you think ...? have you ever wrestled with over engineered code ...?
share your stories in the comments ...
Experienced in Software Architecture & Engineering | Delivering Excellence in Tech Solutions | Eclipse IDE Contributor & JDT Committer
4 个月I agree with your sentiment in this article, there are few ?trying to make code better? approaches of mine i regret to this day. It takes a while as a developer to understand that software engineering literature must be taken with a grain of salt.