September 13, 2008

Introduction

I got interested in writing a blog through observing the daily complaint by programmers everywhere that there's a lot of pretty bad code out there. Now, there's probably a huge number of reasons for that, but one I personally keep running across is that the author of the code doesn't seem to know how to write code to be read by another human being.

The focus of this blog will be on what we can do in writing our code to help future readers of our code (including ourselves) understand what it is supposed to do. Like any discussion of coding style, a good deal of it will be based upon my own opinion of what makes something clearer. Wherever possible, though, I'd like to justify my own opinions by referencing how the mind works, and providing objective reasons for doing things one way over another.

Hopefully, I'll be able to share some of the things I've picked up in my own work, and learn something in the process.  Whether you agree or disagree, I'd love to hear your take on any of the topics I address!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Andrew! I just wanted to mention how interesting your blog is. I recently returned to school, majoring in CS, and am in the midst of learning Java. I've been keeping up with your posts thanks to Facebook and I really enjoy reading your thoughts on better, cleaner coding style. So, thank you!

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