📌 This post is one chapter in my Red Flags series. I’m exploring the mistakes, bad practices, and subtle issues we often overlook in day-to-day development. Stay tuned for upcoming posts!
When your logic starts stacking floors
Some code doesn’t just grow, it builds upward. A tiny “if” becomes two… then five… then fourteen, until you’re staring at an if-else tower tall enough to cast a shadow over your whole feature.
The worst part? These towers rise quietly. One quick fix here, one edge case there, and soon the real intent is buried under layers of branching. Reading it feels like climbing stairs, and testing it feels even worse: every new branch triggers a different path, mocks pile up, and the slightest change can make the whole structure wobble.
New developers don’t approach this structure with confidence, they approach it with caution, like tourists inspecting a suspicious old building.
Luckily, towers can come down.
A great first step is replacing the branching chain with a map or dictionary that acts like a clean switch: each key has its behavior, easy to see and easier to extend. When behaviors differ in meaningful ways, polymorphism is even better. Let each variation live in its own class instead of competing inside one giant conditional.
And for simple cases, the if/return strategy works wonders. Handle special conditions early, return immediately, and keep the logic flat instead of nesting it like Russian dolls.
Once the logic is split, the code becomes readable, testable, and far easier to change. Adding new behavior becomes an extension, not a renovation project. Your teammates stop tiptoeing around the file, and your future self stops sighing every time they open it.
If your conditionals require scrolling, courage, and maybe hydration, it’s probably time to bring the tower down. Your team will thank you.
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