Clean Code Handbook Chapter 1 Summary

Hey all!

I recently started reading "Clean Code A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship" by Robert C. Martin link to the book on Amazon and I thought I would share what I have been learning I believe there are other conclusions you can have from reading this book, the book was highly recommended to me and so far I have not been disappointed.

In the first chapter, the author is trying to help us understand why we need clean code and what clean code is.

The author sells us on the idea that bad code can kill companies because one of the issues with bad code is that once we start with bad code we continue to pile on more bad code which makes fixing bugs harder which eventually makes the application unusable and not and not worth fixing, so then the companies dedicate resources to make a new application that does the same as the old one but then that one is done in a rush with “bad code” and we end up in a never-ending loop of bad code unless we break it and start writing clean code.

Now we get into the what is clean code part of this chapter, here the author asks other famous programmers and teachers how they would describe “clean code” I will not get into all of those here (they are really great but can get too long for this format)so I will try to give a short description that will be inclusive of most of the main points.

A few of the adjectives used to describe clean code are elegant, readable and straightforward when the author breaks those down a little more we get to an understanding that when writing code the focus should be to minimize complexity so when someone else reads the code it should be like reading a book, where everything makes sense and has a clear purpose in other words the code is cared for.

(This is my first post and my first time trying something like this feedback is welcome but please be gentle 😅)