Summary of 'Clean code' by Robert C. Martin

clean_code.md

Code is clean if it can be understood easily – by everyone on the team. Clean code can be read and enhanced by a developer other than its original author. With understandability comes readability, changeability, extensibility and maintainability.

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General rules

1. Follow standard conventions.
2. Keep it simple stupid. Simpler is always better. Reduce complexity as much as possible.
3. Boy scout rule. Leave the campground cleaner than you found it.
4. Always find root cause. Always look for the root cause of a problem.

Design rules

1. Keep configurable data at high levels.
2. Prefer polymorphism to if/else or switch/case.
3. Separate multi-threading code.
4. Prevent over-configurability.
5. Use dependency injection.
6. Follow Law of Demeter. A class should know only its direct dependencies.

Understandability tips

1. Be consistent. If you do something a certain way, do all similar things in the same way.
2. Use explanatory variables.
3. Encapsulate boundary conditions. Boundary conditions are hard to keep track of. Put the processing for them in one place.
4. Prefer dedicated value objects to primitive type.
5. Avoid logical dependency. Don't write methods which works correctly depending on something else in the same class.
6. Avoid negative conditionals.

Names rules

1. Choose descriptive and unambiguous names.
2. Make meaningful distinction.
3. Use pronounceable names.
4. Use searchable names.
5. Replace magic numbers with named constants.
6. Avoid encodings. Don't append prefixes or type information.

Functions rules

1. Small.
2. Do one thing.
3. Use descriptive names.
4. Prefer fewer arguments.
5. Have no side effects.
6. Don't use flag arguments. Split method into several independent methods that can be called from the client without the flag.

Comments rules

1. Always try to explain yourself in code.
2. Don't be redundant.
3. Don't add obvious noise.
4. Don't use closing brace comments.
5. Don't comment out code. Just remove.
6. Use as explanation of intent.
7. Use as clarification of code.
8. Use as warning of consequences.

Source code structure

1. Separate concepts vertically.
2. Related code should appear vertically dense.
3. Declare variables close to their usage.
4. Dependent functions should be close.
5. Similar functions should be close.
6. Place functions in the downward direction.
7. Keep lines short.
8. Don't use horizontal alignment.
9. Use white space to associate related things and disassociate weakly related.
10. Don't break indentation.

Objects and data structures

1. Hide internal structure.
2. Prefer data structures.
3. Avoid hybrids structures (half object and half data).
4. Should be small.
5. Do one thing.
6. Small number of instance variables.
7. Base class should know nothing about their derivatives.
8. Better to have many functions than to pass some code into a function to select a behavior.
9. Prefer non-static methods to static methods.

Tests

1. One assert per test.
2. Readable.
3. Fast.
4. Independent.
5. Repeatable.

Code smells

1. Rigidity. The software is difficult to change. A small change causes a cascade of subsequent changes.
2. Fragility. The software breaks in many places due to a single change.
3. Immobility. You cannot reuse parts of the code in other projects because of involved risks and high effort.
4. Needless Complexity.
5. Needless Repetition.
6. Opacity. The code is hard to understand.

Wow, that Cool Thanks 👍

Turns out paying too much attention to the "cleanliness" of your code can have significant drawbacks. Such that it may become indefensible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5NrevFtbU

Turns out paying too much attention to the "cleanliness" of your code can have significant drawbacks. Such that it may become indefensible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5NrevFtbU

It seemed like he was looking to prove his point rather than being honest about it. I very rarely need to depart from these principals to make performant code.

Appreciate your efforts. Very useful.
Thanks

Some testing principles I can't resist noting here - pretty sure I got them from this book:

• Test interface not implementation
• All untested code is broken, you just don't know it yet!

Thank you for the summary!

Great page. Tou covered it well.

Petition to remove "Have no side effects" from "function rules". Side effects in the clean code book referrers to a function doing two or more things but only saying it does one thing. Since functions should only do one thing in the first place this rule is just repeating another rule with a worse wording.

Clean code (the book) actually prefers functions to have side effects (regular meaning now) if you can reduce the number of arguments it takes. This is never stated but it's evident by the clean code sample at the end of that chapter.

Nice

Thanks. I used it as a reference to improve my codes from now!

However, I will read that book.

Hello Excuse me, do you know me? I am sorry.
…
On Fri, Mar 3, 2023 at 4:22 AM NidusUmbra @.> wrote: @.* commented on this gist. ------------------------------ Turns out paying too much attention to the "cleanliness" of your code can have significant drawbacks. Such that it may become indefensible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5NrevFtbU — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://gist.github.com/73c6914cc446146b8b533c0988cf8d29#gistcomment-4490308 or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A5BVSDB5VI2O7DGOAIUABFTW2GZ55BFKMF2HI4TJMJ2XIZLTSKBKK5TBNR2WLJDHNFZXJJDOMFWWLK3UNBZGKYLEL52HS4DFQKSXMYLMOVS2I5DSOVS2I3TBNVS3W5DIOJSWCZC7OBQXE5DJMNUXAYLOORPWCY3UNF3GS5DZVRZXKYTKMVRXIX3UPFYGLK2HNFZXIQ3PNVWWK3TUUZ2G64DJMNZZDAVEOR4XAZNEM5UXG5FFOZQWY5LFVA2DANZRHAYDQM5HORZGSZ3HMVZKMY3SMVQXIZI . You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675 or Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub .

No. These reply notifications don't work like one would intuitively think. I did not reply to you nor did I quote you. You get a notif when anyone answers the main thread. Cheers.

Thanks very much! I'll read that book carefully sometime

very very useful !

https://kingadesign.com/clean-code-poster-free-download?fbclid=IwAR2p9y7Rf5gyH586sXYxp2dgoA3kWvRlLO5jfgeHlj77k1Y94qM1grjdW84

Hi, the link is not working. I got: Something went wrong!
Page not found.. Thanks!

https://github.com/tum-esi/common-coding-conventions

Very cool! Thanks!

So helpful

Thank you!!!

I would like to contribute to this amazing Clean Code hints by one that I noticed it's possible to be done and nobody talks about...

Conditional Simplification

You can always turn a complex conditional into a simpler one through the Propositional Logic rules

• References

1. De Morgan
2. Tautology
3. Propositional Logic

Inspired by Robert C Marin's book: Clean Code

Or you could just paste an "obfuscated" ((a && b) || (b &&c) || (!a && !c)) version of your condition into https://www.wolframalpha.com/ and let it do the work. (Minimal forms)

That's work. But if "setting" is null when hideOnGrid is false, it's generate exception.

I would like to contribute to this amazing Clean Code hints by one that I noticed it's possible to be done and nobody talks about...

Conditional Simplification

You can always turn a complex conditional into a simpler one through the Propositional Logic rules

• References

1. De Morgan
2. Tautology
3. Propositional Logic

Inspired by Robert C Marin's book: Clean Code

Or you could just paste an "obfuscated" ((a && b) || (b &&c) || (!a && !c)) version of your condition into https://www.wolframalpha.com/ and let it do the work. (Minimal forms)

That's work. But if "setting" is null when hideOnGrid is false, it's generate exception.

You could define additional vars to add semantic. Ex.

const mustHideOnGridByColumn = column.hideOnGrid;
const mustHideOnGridBySetting = setting && setting.hide_on_grid;

return !(mustHideOnGridByColumn || mustHideOnGridBySetting);
 // or: return !mustHideOnGridByColumn && !mustHideOnGridBySetting

This way is very clean and improves readability

Very helpful!

However heres a video challenging the efficacy of 5 design rules of clean code: https://youtu.be/tD5NrevFtbU

I am not a programmer myself. So, I haven't read the book myself (although I knew about it for sure 😉) and I read the summary here now for the first time—and I just realized, the recommendations actually apply to quite a lot of other things as well!

So, for all non-engineers, it's worth the read! 💡 Thanks for sharing. 👍

I would like to contribute to this amazing Clean Code hints by one that I noticed it's possible to be done and nobody talks about...

Conditional Simplification

You can always turn a complex conditional into a simpler one through the Propositional Logic rules

• References

1. De Morgan
2. Tautology
3. Propositional Logic

Inspired by Robert C Marin's book: Clean Code

Or you could just paste an "obfuscated" ((a && b) || (b &&c) || (!a && !c)) version of your condition into https://www.wolframalpha.com/ and let it do the work. (Minimal forms)

That's work. But if "setting" is null when hideOnGrid is false, it's generate exception.

You could define additional vars to add semantic. Ex.

const mustHideOnGridByColumn = column.hideOnGrid;
const mustHideOnGridBySetting = setting && setting.hide_on_grid;

return !(mustHideOnGridByColumn || mustHideOnGridBySetting);
 // or: return !mustHideOnGridByColumn && !mustHideOnGridBySetting

This way is very clean and improves readability

This is by far one of the best things I’ve started doing for a while.

Usually boolean conditions are a representation of a behavior, meaningful names will always help your code read like a story.

That way just by reading the variable name you get the problem statement.

For example:

if (isReadyToReceiveMessage) {…}

Of course one should be careful to not create misleading variables that don’t mean what the condition represent. (tests help with that semantics).

@Victorcorcos if setting is null or undefined the old code is working but not the new code, or am I missing something ?

The new code will work, because this is applied:

1. Avoid NPE on q by using || {}

• Before

setting = fieldSettings[column.foreignAttribute] || fieldSettings[column.description]

• After

setting = fieldSettings[column.foreignAttribute] || fieldSettings[column.description] || {}

So, in case setting is null/undefined, it will be {}, which won't cause NPE.

→ We can't see that on the picture, but that || {} was the change on that specific line

Interesting

Can I download this book somewhere for free? TY<3

thanks for this @wojteklu 👍

it helps a lot for me thank you.

sounds great, thank you!

❤️

Thanks for this notes!

Would be helpful if someone will add code example refactored as above one.