magic_lobster_party

There’s no profits in this.

Your description is accurate. No need for that /s

I think try catch often leads to messy code. It breaks the control flow in weird ways. For some reason we’ve collectively agreed on that goto is a bad idea, but we’re still using exceptions for error handling.

Consider this example:

try {
    File file = openFile();
    String contents = file.read();
    file.close();
    return contents:
} catch (IoException) {
}

Say an exception is triggered. Which of these lines triggered the exception? It’s hard to tell.

We might want to handle each type of error differently. If we fail to open the file, we might want to use a backup file instead. If we fail to read the file, we might want to close it and retry with the same file again to see if it works better this time. If we fail to close the file, we might just want to raise a warning. We already got what we wanted.

One way to handle this is to wrap each line around a separate try catch. This is incredibly messy and leads to problematic scopes. Another way is to have 3 different exception types: FileOpenException, FileReadException and FileCloseException. This is also incredibly messy.

Or we can include the error in the return value. Then we can do whatever we want programmatically like any other code we write.

https://www.eldercactus.com/the-horse/

Problem is that barely anyone use crypto as currency. Almost everybody treat it as a stupid get rich quick scheme.

His idea is that it’s faster to read that short string once you learn how to read it. But then you need to learn how to read it.

In my experience, every time I thought of something clever like this, I’ll almost always regret it a month later when I revisit the code.

New code is O(n log n), but the time benefits only kicks in when n is above 1 trillion. Otherwise it’s much slower.

I almost pulled my hair out when I read that section. One is super obvious without any prior experience with the code. The other is an obscure abomination only he can understand. He’s obviously super proud of his abomination and thinks it’s a prime example of “clean code”.

Imo, if a method require the caller to do error handling, then that should be part of the return value. For example, use optional or either. Exceptions shouldn’t be part of any expected control flow (like file not found). Exceptions is an emergency panic button.

Yeah, that’s an argument of semantics. I agree with you.

What I believe is that functions should do exactly what they advertise. If they do the things they’re supposed to do, but also do other things they’re not supposed to do, then they’re not minimal.

But I feel like Uncle Bob is leaning more towards that if a task requires 100 different operations, then that should be split into 100 different functions. One operation is one thing. Maybe not exactly, but that’s kind of vibes I get from his examples.

why comments shouldn't explain how the code works

I categorize this as one of the better points of the book.

functions should do one thing

I kinda disagree with him on this point. I wouldn’t necessarily limit to one thing, but I think functions should preferably be minimal.

Throughout his examples he’s also using ideas like how functions should only be 3 lines long, preferably have no arguments, and also no return values.

This style of coding leads to programs that are nightmarish to work with. The relevant code you’re looking for might be 10 layers deep of function calls, but you don’t know where. You’re just jumping between functions that does barely nothing until you find the thing you’re looking for, and then you need to figure out how everything is connected together.

I prefer when things are flatter. This generally leads to more maintainable code as it’s immediately obvious what the code is doing and how everything is connected.

I think his book is the equivalent of a cleaning guide where all the steps are just to sweep all the mess under the carpet. It looks cleaner, but it’s not clean.

I genuinely think his book is rubbish. I agree with some of his points. Most of the good points are common sense. For the most part I heavily disagree with the book.

Throughout the book he has examples of programs where he shows before and after he applies “clean code”, and in almost all examples it was better how it was before.

I can write a lot about why I don’t like his book. He doesn’t make many compelling arguments. It’s mostly based on what he feels is good. He often contradicts himself as well. If I remember correctly, he has a section about how side effects are bad. I agree with him on this part. Shortly after, he proudly shows an example of “clean” program - and it’s littered with awful side effects!

He also has this weird obsession of hiding the logic of the program. As a programmer, I want all relevant logic of a method to be neatly collected in one place - not scattered around deeply nested method calls.

I can go on and on. I hate this book with a passion.