Discussions about clean code often get derailed by debates over formatting, brace placement, or personal taste.
That framing misses the real purpose of clean code entirely. Clean code is not about style, it’s about communication.
Most code lives far longer than we expect, and it is read far more often than it is written.
When code is difficult to understand, the cost shows up everywhere: slower onboarding, hesitant refactors, subtle bugs, and engineers afraid to touch “fragile” areas of the system. None of that is caused by a lack of intelligence. It’s caused by unnecessary cognitive load.
Clean code reduces that load.
Clear naming communicates intent. Small, focused functions limit how much context you need to keep in your head. Explicit logic removes the need to mentally simulate clever shortcuts. These things don’t necessarily make code shorter, but they make it safer to change, which is the real goal.
Linters and style guides are useful, but they’re only guardrails. The deeper skill is empathy. Write code as if the next person reading it is unfamiliar with the system, under time pressure, and slightly tired. That person may be a teammate, or it may be you six months from now.
Clean code is not about being impressive. It’s about being kind to the humans who have to work with your software after you’re gone.
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