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The Best Ways To Simplify Your Code? (dice.com)

Nerval's Lobster writes: Technical debt arises for many reasons—whether moving goal posts, pressure to get code tested and released, high programmer turnover, and lack of documentation. Over time, it can also render code a spaghetti-like mess. But how to deal with it? In a new column on Dice, developer David Bolton offers some suggestions, ranging from refactoring to using compiler inference to increase readability and shorten declarations. While those techniques are straightforward, it's clear that a lot of developers let their code get out of control, and trying to plan beforehand doesn't necessarily prevent the work from getting overcomplicated. It seems like every developer has a go-to technique (or four) for keeping things a little more streamlined. What are yours?

6 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. How to simplify your code... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1, Funny

    One line at a time.

  2. How to deal by Rei · · Score: 4, Funny

    It seems like every developer has a go-to technique (or four) for keeping things a little more streamlined. What are yours?

    The mess is just part of coding. Deal with the mess. Accept the mess. Live with the mess. Join with the mess. Speak with the mess. Hear its answers whispered into your head. Nod assent as the mess intones its instructions. Welcome the mess in and let its tendrils throw through your veins. Understand the mess's greater plans and become its corporeal servant on this earth. Hail the mess. Hail the mess. All hail the mess. HAIL!

    --
    He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
  3. Goto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    has a go-to technique

    How did they know my technique!?

  4. And in related news... by dark.nebulae · · Score: 3, Funny

    Developer David Bolton has moved on from Dice and the remaining authors have been left scrambling trying to pull his notes and articles etc together to generate new content. They report having difficulty understanding how he cobbled together the disparate information into existing articles and have advocated just rewriting the articles from the ground up so they would be easier to maintain going forward.

  5. Re:Dice sucks dick. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dice.com sucks big dicks.

    +4 insightful? Is everyone with moderation points 14 year old?

    Apparently, and it ignores the simple fact that Dice probably sucks small and medium dicks as well.

    So, in keeping with the thread topic, I'll simplify the original statement: Dice.com sucks dicks.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  6. Re:Dice sucks dick. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Dice.com sucks big dicks.

    it's DICE but I'll bite

    It's the only way DICE will ever learn. :|