Comment by ziml77
5 years ago
I agree. Trying to apply the lessons in there leads to code that is more difficult to read and reason about. Making it "read like a book" and keeping functions short sound good on the surface but they lead to lines getting taken up entirely by function names and a nightmare of tracking call after call after call.
It's been years since I've read the book and I'm still having trouble with the bad ideas from there because they're so well stuck with me that I feel like I'm doing things wrong if I don't follow the guidelines in there. Sometimes I'll actually write something in a sensible way, change it to the Clean Code way, and then revert it back to where it was when I realize my own code is confusing me when written like that.
This isn't just a Robert C Martin issue. It's a cultural issue. People need to stop shaming others if their code doesn't align with Clean Code. People need to stop preaching from the book.
I make my code "read like a book" with a line comment for each algorithmic step inside a function, and adding line-ending comments to clarify. So functions are just containers of steps designed to reduce repetition, increase visibility, and minimize data passing and globals.