Optimizing Code for Humans

1. Optimizing code for humans @felipernb !
2. “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” Martin Fowler - @martinfowler @felipernb !
3. Simplicity is subjective (?) ! @felipernb !
4. “The purpose of software engineering is to control complexity, not to create it.” Pamela Zave @felipernb !
5. “A C program with six 32-bit integers can have more states than the number of atoms on the planet” Joe Armstrong - @joeerl @felipernb !
6. Programming is hard ! @felipernb !
7. Where does complexity creep in? ! @felipernb !
8. Algorithms ! @felipernb !
9. “Fancy algorithms are buggier than simple ones, and they're much harder to implement.” Rob Pike's Rule #4 - @rob_pike @felipernb !
10. Searching // O(n) function linearSearch(arr, x) { for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) { if (arr[i] === x) return true; } return false; } @felipernb !
11. “Oh! But my array is always sorted, so I can make this faster. Let's get fancy!” Developer ! @felipernb !
12. Fancy search // Sorted arrays only, O(lg n) function binarySearch(arr, x) { let low = 0; let high = arr.length - 1; while (low <= high) { const mid = ((high - low) >> 1) + low; if (arr[mid] === x) return true; if (a[mid] < element) low = mid + 1; else high = mid - 1; } return false; } @felipernb !
13. “Fancy algorithms are slow when n is small, and n is usually small.” Rob Pike’s Rule #3 - @rob_pike @felipernb !
14. Don't get fancy! ! @felipernb !
15. “Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming.” Rob Pike’s Rule #5 - @rob_pike @felipernb !
16. Performance ! @felipernb !
17. “Premature optimization is the root of all evil” Donald Knuth @felipernb !
18. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how fast it doesn’t work.” Mich Ravera @felipernb !
19. “The cleaner and nicer the program, the faster it's going to run. And if it doesn't, it'll be easy to make it fast.” Joshua Bloch - @joshbloch @felipernb !
20. “Measure. Don't tune for speed until you've measured, and even then don't unless one part of the code overwhelms the rest.” Rob Pike’s Rule #2 - @rob_pike @felipernb !
21. Novelty ✨ @felipernb !
22. “Surprise is one of the most expensive things you can put into a software architecture.” Adam Tornhill - @adamtornhill @felipernb !
23. Boring is fine ! @felipernb !
24. “Are you quite sure that all those bells and whistles, all those wonderful facilities of your so called powerful programming languages, belong to the solution set rather than the problem set?” Edsger W. Dijkstra @felipernb !
25. Naming things ! @felipernb !
26. “There are two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by- one errors.” Phil Karlton + the internet @felipernb !
27. Descriptive names can replace //comments @felipernb !
28. doThisAndThatAndReturnThisOtherThing(); If it's hard to name it, it's probably doing too much @felipernb !
29. // Double negation is confusing ! if (!disabledFeature) { // it's enabled! } Avoid flag names with negative meanings such as disable and disallow @felipernb !
30. Personal taste ❤ @felipernb !
31. “I do not like semicolons.” Some guy closing a perfectly valid pull request ! @felipernb !
32. “You can't always get what you want.” The Rolling Stones @felipernb !
33. Strict style guides are good ! @felipernb !
34. The code should be consistent regardless of who wrote it. @felipernb !
35. Automation can put an end to lengthy and pointless discussions* . * Specially when we all know that tabs make much more sense than spaces. @felipernb !
36. When consistency is a given, you can focus on what really matters. @felipernb !
37. The ! Enterprise @felipernb !
38. “Any organization that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” Conway's law @felipernb !
39. Cargo Cult ✈ @felipernb !
40. “A significant amount of programming is done by superstition” Chris Siebenmann @felipernb !
41. Be ! skeptical @felipernb !
42. Tech Debt ! @felipernb !
43. “If you want to go fast you take some debt. But the misunderstanding was that people thought that you never have to pay it back.” Ward Cunningham - @wardcunningham @felipernb !
44. “Technical debt is hard to explain, but a picture is worth a thousand words” Jedd Ahyoung - @Jedd_Ahyoung @felipernb !
45. How to keep things sane? ! @felipernb !
46. KISS ! Keep it simple, stupid @felipernb !
47. “Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?” Brian Kernighan @felipernb !
48. Design patterns ⛩ @felipernb !
49. Design patterns are not about pigeonholing problems, but a tool to efficiently communicate solutions with a common vocabulary. @felipernb !
50. Refactoring ! @felipernb !
51. “Software is messy because it reflects our evolving understanding of the problem as we wrote it.” Sarah Mei - @sarahmei @felipernb !
52. Unlike the messed up Tetris game, you should be able to take the time to rearrange the pieces in your code. @felipernb !
53. Code reviews ! @felipernb !
54. “My code isn't done until I've gone over it with a fellow developer.” Jeff Atwood - @codinghorror @felipernb !
55. Peer review ≠ Pair programming @felipernb !
56. @felipernb !
57. Pragmatism ! @felipernb !
58. “Engineers are hired to say no.” Uncle Bob Martin - @unclebobmartin @felipernb !
59. @felipernb !
60. Sometimes you have to say no to fun @felipernb !
61. Thank you! @felipernb !