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Posted 14 minutes ago · 48,698 reads

Readability is not about clever code or terse syntax. It's about making the intent of the code obvious to the next person who reads it—which might be you, six months later, having forgotten everything.

APIs are contracts. Once you publish one, changing it becomes expensive for everyone who depends on it. The cost of breaking changes compounds over time, which is why the boring, conservative choice is usually the right one.

Optimize for comprehension first.

Legacy code is called legacy for a reason. It works. It's been tested in production. It's often the most reliable code in your system, even if it doesn't follow modern conventions.

APIs are contracts. Once you publish one, changing it becomes expensive for everyone who depends on it. The cost of breaking changes compounds over time, which is why the boring, conservative choice is usually the right one.

Most of the code we write is not rocket science. It's ordinary business logic, wrapped in layers of frameworks and abstractions. Sometimes the simplest implementation is the best.

Type systems don't prevent bugs—they just catch certain categories of bugs earlier. The real benefit is the documentation they provide about what a function is supposed to do.

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I've noticed that the best technical decisions come from understanding not just what works, but why it works. The deeper your intuition about a system, the better your architectural choices become.

Know your tools deeply.

I've noticed that the best technical decisions come from understanding not just what works, but why it works. The deeper your intuition about a system, the better your architectural choices become.