Programming is a social construct
It really is
Have you ever been presented with someone’s piece of code and ran away scared?
It happened a lot to me, and I think everyone working in Computer Science experienced it. You reach out to your office early in the morning and there it is: An ugly piece of code you have to work with.
When something like that happens to me, I need two things: A coffee and the name of the guy who wrote that code. So I start browsing the Git history until the very truth is revealed. I knew it deep down in my heart, but I didn't want to accept it. That code was mine.
There are two reasons a code can be ugly. One is related to seniority and the other with responsibility. As a programmer, you improve your coding day by day, so if you look at code you wrote a long time ago and become aware of its flaws, be proud. You've come a long way.
But what happens when the reason a piece of code isn't very elegant has nothing to be with seniority? You had the knowledge to write better code, but yet you didn't. If that’s the case, I'm sorry to reach out like this, but you sir, are a very irresponsible human being.
Programming is a social construct. It really is. You write code for other people to read it, modify and even delete it. The truth is whether you write all your code in a single line or you apply good object-oriented principles, the compiler will understand it the same. So are you really coding for machines? No, you are coding for people. If you happen to be in a company, then you write code for your co-workers. If you’re in an Open Source project, you write for the community. Is your responsibility as a human being to write code that is understandable to other people, even yourself after some time.
Every time your laziness is about to let you commit a programming crime, think about this:
You are even able to induce feelings with your coding style. If someone sees your ugly code, will certainly see you as an ugly person. If you write elegant code, you will be a beautiful person. True Story.
