Chapter 4
Knowledge Augmentation
The source code might have code that is never executed, variable and procedure names that are lies, and is in general a poor way to learn the programmer’s intention. To me, design is as much the decisions and the reasons as the results of the decisions. Sometimes code makes that clear, but usually it doesn’t.
—Ralph Johnson, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhatIsSoftwareDesign
Software is built from its source code. Does this mean that the source code tells everything there is to know over the lifecycle of the application? Sure, the source code tells a lot—and it has to. The source code describes how to build the software so that the compiler can do it. Clean code goes further, aiming to make knowledge as clear as possible ...
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