Subjective does not mean that there isn't approach that overall is better for the majority. Too often people reject arguments as "subjective" simply because it doesn't happen to follow their personal biases, likes/dislikes.
There is a lot of very objective arugment that I gave to you why reduce is bad (in this case). Yet the only thing you can do is reply that "it's subjective".
How can we more objectively approach this issue? If you would attempt to lose your biases we could do it. Basically I have stated my problems with 'reduce()' - what makes it bad. Even if you don't think (subjectively) that it's bad for you, the very fact that it's bad to me, already is a concern that we should attempt to solve. I have proposed solution how we can address the readability issues that I had. Now follow up is, for you to express, if you have readability issue with the approach that I suggested? If you have - we can try to see if I can propose something that works for both. But you don't say it. Instead you quit early from engaging in search for best approach and religiously stick to what you think is subjective and not worth discussing - remaining stuck with your personal favorite approach even if it's not the best approach for both or the whole community.
I'm not rejecting them, merely pointing out that they're purely subjective. You didn't raise a single objective argument - 'not easy to see', 'very hard to understand', and 'hard to understand' couldn't be more subjective.
There are downsides to rigidly promoting readability and 'clean' code above everything else. I brought these up in a previous post:
You say it's subjective. But I cannot agree with this. This comes from my personal experience of teaching others, and reading code and I have 15 years of experience in that. But if you are not convinced with my experience - that is fine. It is possible to setup experiment that could confirm or deny the premise that I make. Experiment could look like so: we take 200 random developers. We split them in half. We present them with a piece of code. We ask them a comprehension question, that we ask to answer as fast as is possible. Alternatively we can ask a question to modify the code to do something slightly else - this also would test not only how easy it is to comprehend the code but also how easy it is to change it which is also important. We compare the results of 2 groups. And we have objective answer.
The answer will not be subjective. It will be objective result (time it takes to get to correct answer). I'm not asking a question "chose your favorite". I would be asking "what is result of the code" and I'll be measuring the time it takes to get to correct answer. Some developers are smarter than others but on average one group will prevail over the other. Naturally the code that is easier to understand will produce faster results. Alternative question can be set to modify code to do something else. Again we can measure time it takes for each group to get to modified code - the group that gets it faster is objective winner. And even better approach - that truly will make the biggest difference in two approaches - could be to throw in a subtle bug - and ask developer to find and fix the bug. While in case of comprehension developers may often make a confidence guess based on looks - when it comes to subtle bugs - you only get to fix them when you truly parsed and perfectly understood every comma in code.
Totally correct, the results of your poll would be objective - a mere accounting of the results.
However, none of this alters the fact that readability and understandability in themselves are subjective, which is the point you seem to take issue with.
It's not subjective. It has easily measurable effects. Easier to read code is faster to spot bugs, faster to fix bugs, faster to teach unfamiliar developer who's just starting their career. It starts from a discussion on what is hard to understand (the very points I mentioned). And if you don't agree with my complains then please throw a randomized trial and prove it to me that my problems are only in my head and that other people don't have the kind of issues that I encounter when reading your poorly written code.
Again, I never disagreed with you. I merely pointed out that the properties of readability and understandability are subjective, which - by definition - they are.
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How can readability and understandability NOT be subjective? They're purely dependent on the reader. That's subjective by definition
Subjective does not mean that there isn't approach that overall is better for the majority. Too often people reject arguments as "subjective" simply because it doesn't happen to follow their personal biases, likes/dislikes.
There is a lot of very objective arugment that I gave to you why reduce is bad (in this case). Yet the only thing you can do is reply that "it's subjective".
How can we more objectively approach this issue? If you would attempt to lose your biases we could do it. Basically I have stated my problems with 'reduce()' - what makes it bad. Even if you don't think (subjectively) that it's bad for you, the very fact that it's bad to me, already is a concern that we should attempt to solve. I have proposed solution how we can address the readability issues that I had. Now follow up is, for you to express, if you have readability issue with the approach that I suggested? If you have - we can try to see if I can propose something that works for both. But you don't say it. Instead you quit early from engaging in search for best approach and religiously stick to what you think is subjective and not worth discussing - remaining stuck with your personal favorite approach even if it's not the best approach for both or the whole community.
I'm not rejecting them, merely pointing out that they're purely subjective. You didn't raise a single objective argument - 'not easy to see', 'very hard to understand', and 'hard to understand' couldn't be more subjective.
There are downsides to rigidly promoting readability and 'clean' code above everything else. I brought these up in a previous post:
Preaching 'Clean Code' is Lowering the Quality of Developers
Jon Randy 🎖️ ・ Jun 25 '22 ・ 3 min read
You say it's subjective. But I cannot agree with this. This comes from my personal experience of teaching others, and reading code and I have 15 years of experience in that. But if you are not convinced with my experience - that is fine. It is possible to setup experiment that could confirm or deny the premise that I make. Experiment could look like so: we take 200 random developers. We split them in half. We present them with a piece of code. We ask them a comprehension question, that we ask to answer as fast as is possible. Alternatively we can ask a question to modify the code to do something slightly else - this also would test not only how easy it is to comprehend the code but also how easy it is to change it which is also important. We compare the results of 2 groups. And we have objective answer.
...based on the subjective opinions of 200 developers. The fact remains that readability and understandability are ultimately subjective.
My opinions are also drawn from long experience. I've been programming for 39 years, and doing it professionally for around 27.
The answer will not be subjective. It will be objective result (time it takes to get to correct answer). I'm not asking a question "chose your favorite". I would be asking "what is result of the code" and I'll be measuring the time it takes to get to correct answer. Some developers are smarter than others but on average one group will prevail over the other. Naturally the code that is easier to understand will produce faster results. Alternative question can be set to modify code to do something else. Again we can measure time it takes for each group to get to modified code - the group that gets it faster is objective winner. And even better approach - that truly will make the biggest difference in two approaches - could be to throw in a subtle bug - and ask developer to find and fix the bug. While in case of comprehension developers may often make a confidence guess based on looks - when it comes to subtle bugs - you only get to fix them when you truly parsed and perfectly understood every comma in code.
Totally correct, the results of your poll would be objective - a mere accounting of the results.
However, none of this alters the fact that readability and understandability in themselves are subjective, which is the point you seem to take issue with.
It's not subjective. It has easily measurable effects. Easier to read code is faster to spot bugs, faster to fix bugs, faster to teach unfamiliar developer who's just starting their career. It starts from a discussion on what is hard to understand (the very points I mentioned). And if you don't agree with my complains then please throw a randomized trial and prove it to me that my problems are only in my head and that other people don't have the kind of issues that I encounter when reading your poorly written code.
Again, I never disagreed with you. I merely pointed out that the properties of readability and understandability are subjective, which - by definition - they are.