The Immense Effect of Simple Code
Because code is written for humans, only executed by machines.
One of the best ways of learning how to write code is by reading other people’s code. Imitating what other people do, especially if it’s done well, is a very solid way to gain proficiency in any skill rather quickly. This holds true for a variety of skills such as carpentry, cooking, and for artistic skills such as writing, painting and also programming. We build on what others have done before us. That way, we don’t have to make the same mistakes over and over again: we benefit from the historic wisdom of the masses as it were.
Unlike with other skills, writing code can be done in any number of ways. Not only are there countless of ways to solve any given problem, there are also numerous possible implementations of any of those solutions. This raises the question: “what separates a good implementation from a bad one?”
About eight years ago, I got my first job as a software engineer on a game development team. I was about as green as I could be, and between not being very strong mathematically and not having any prior education in development, I was set for a challenge, to say the least. Fortunately, the gaming industry was chock-full of concepts such as behavior trees and fancy algorithms, which all made very little sense to me at…
