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Posted 14 hours ago · 50,485 reads
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.
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.
The best abstractions are invisible.
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.
Code reviews are less about finding bugs and more about ensuring that the team understands why a decision was made. The review is a conversation, not a gate.
Terminal emulators are primitive tools compared to modern IDEs, but they force a certain discipline. You can't rely on auto-completion and syntax highlighting to write code for you; you have to understand what you're writing.
The idea that frameworks solve problems is mostly marketing. They shift the nature of the problems, making some things easier and others harder. The trick is choosing the right tools for your constraints.
The most important insight I've had in the last few years is that constraints are a feature, not a bug. When you have unlimited resources, you can solve any problem in a hundred different ways. When you have constraints—limited memory, limited time, limited developers—you're forced to think more clearly.
Your future self will thank you.
The idea that frameworks solve problems is mostly marketing. They shift the nature of the problems, making some things easier and others harder. The trick is choosing the right tools for your constraints.