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Simple ways to improve code readability

briwa on May 11, 2019

TL;DR: It might be obvious to you, but not to others. Why? More often than not, I used to think that my code is just for me (Narrator: ...

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Theofanis Despoudis • May 11 '19

I think sometimes, a change of paradigm can make things more obvious. For example in Clojure

(def ids [1 2 3 4 5])
(defn retrieve [id]
  (when (contains? ids id) 
     (retrieveItemById id)))

It is quite readable as the vocabulary of functions are more relevant.

briwa • May 12 '19

Haven't tried Clojure but boy that is a whole new level of readability. Thanks for the tips. I agree, this article is merely baby steps to something bigger like switching to Clojure.

James Thomson • May 13 '19

Good tips. I think reading the logic out as a sentence is definitely a great way to realise if it will make sense to others at first glance. If it doesn't read as a proper sentence, then it likely isn't going to easily make sense to others.

Btw, small thing, but item.stock >= 0 should be item.stock > 0 as if the stock = 0 then there is no stock ;)

briwa • May 13 '19 • Edited

Hey, that is true! My mistake. Thanks for correcting me. I've amended the article.

Miguel • May 12 '19

I didn’t know how much more efficient .some and .every were compared to filter. I definitely need to refactor my code that fit this exact use-case. Thank you for sharing!

Jesse Phillips • May 12 '19

Be careful when making these logic changes. Check that your unittesting will catch incorrect logic since there are several potential logic changes, should && become ¦¦...

briwa • May 13 '19

Ah yup, that is true. Refactoring should always be done with tests beforehand. I missed that out. Thanks for the tips!

Mersano Berant • Oct 26 '20

GREAT