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Stop Overengineering: How to Write Clean Code That Actually Ships πŸš€

TheBitForge on January 10, 2026

I've spent the better part of a decade writing code that I thought was brilliant, only to realize six months later that it was a monument to my o...
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Hadil Ben Abdallah

I loved how you framed momentum as the real casualty. I’ve seen more products die from never shipping than from shipping something imperfect. Simple code that ships teaches you more than a perfect architecture built in isolation.
Great post! πŸ‘πŸ»

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TheBitForge

Thanks Hadil 😊

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Aaron Rose

yep great post, bitforge! thanks πŸ’―

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TheBitForge

Thanks 😊

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Leonardo Zanarella

done is better than perfect - cit ;)

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TheBitForge

Thanks 🏡

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Keith Mifsud

Perfectly explained πŸ‘Œ

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Helm

Great stuff

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TheBitForge

Thanks 😊

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Cyber Safety Zone

This is such a refreshing and practical perspective β€” we often get caught up in patterns and abstractions because they look smart, not because they actually help solve real problems. The examples you shared clearly show how building for hypothetical futures can slow teams down and bury them in complexity.

I especially liked your point that code should be written for users first β€” and optimized later once you truly understand the problem space. Starting with the simplest solution that works, then refactoring based on real needs, not guesses, is a mindset shift that separates productive engineers from β€œarchitecture for ego” coding.

This resonates with a lot of discussions in developer communities about clean vs clever code β€” where sometimes cleverness makes the code harder to read and maintain, even if it’s technically elegant. When readability and practical shipping matter most, clarity almost always wins

Thanks for writing a piece that pushes back against needless complexity and that encourages pragmatism over perfection!

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ElshadHu

Excellent post! I learned this the hard way. When I started writing my own projects, as my first project I chose a course management system in C++. You know what happened? I spent a month and a half creating extreme abstractions and dealing with extreme casts until my friend saw my code. He told me, 'Your code looks like tight pants, if you move, they'll tear!' πŸ˜‚. That day I realized I was just obsessing over architecture and not doing anything. Thank God, now I've developed a sense for when code becomes unnecessarily abstract. I really liked your post. Thanks for the reminder to keep things simple.

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Evan Lausier

I am a huge proponent of this. K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid)!!