Code is run more than read (2023)

Summary

Code is run more than read Code is read more than written This phrase is, by now, common programmer knowledge, a reminder that the person first writing a piece of code shouldn’t buy convenience at the expense of the people who will have to read it and modify it in the future. More generally, code is read more than written conveys that it’s usually a good investment to make the code maintainable by keeping it simple, writing tests and documentation, etc. It’s about having perspective over the software development cycle. Let me express this idea more succinctly: I think this line of thought can be extended beyond code-writing and used as a rule of thumb to identify problems and make decisions. Code is used more than read Code is a means to an end. Software should have a purpose, it’s supposed to provide a service to some user. It doesn’t matter how well written or maintainable the code is, nor how sophisticated the technology it uses if it doesn’t fulfill its purpose and provides a good experience to the user: user > maintainer > author Or, since we won’t need to distinguish between developer roles anymore: This is why, instead of guessing or asking what they need, it’s best to put the program in front of the users early and frequently and to incorporate what we learn from their feedback. This is a strong mental model, just keeping the users in mind during development can get us quite far. It’s approximately how I learned the job and how I understood it for the first half of my career. Code is run more than read When I say “run” I don’t just mean executing a program; I mean operating it in production, with all that it entails: deploying, upgrading, observing, auditing, monitoring, fixing, decommissioning, etc. As Dan McKinley puts it: It is basically always the case that the long-term costs of keeping a system working reliably vastly exceed any inconveniences you encounter while building it. We can incorporate this idea into our little model: It took me a while to ful...