Programmers usually attribute readability, or more often the lack of, to the code itself. Of course if you're using a bubble sort, no amount of micro-optimization can help you there... but within reason, I don't think it's always so clear-cut. Apart from the question if PCs contributed to global warming, even if it were real: It is a fallacy, that more energy efficiency leads to less energy demand. When we say that some code “is unreadable” we actually mean one or more of: I can’t read the code because I don’t … "Code is written to be read by humans and incidently run by computers" SICP. Regardless, complexity of design has a direct correlation with the ability of a developer to quickly learn and become familiar with such a design, and further modifications to functionality in a complex component can result in bugs that might not be caught by unit tests. There is a balance between readability and maintainability in a good source code. Choosing one of these "styles" for performance is a micro-optimization that will never pay off as soon as a programmer spends an extra few seconds trying to understand what it does. Readable Good readability means that when a new developer touches the code, it will take less time to comprehend what the code is doing. Now as said, I believe readability and maintainability are not harmonious concepts. To improve readability and maintainability, you should declare _____ instead of using literal values such as 3.14159. constants According to Java naming convention, which of … Algorithmic optimizations are a lower-hanging fruit and are nearly always a lot easier to understand than really low-level optimizations. Optimizing code for performance often makes it more complicated because it generally involves doing things in a clever way, instead of the most intuitive. The point is not readability should always trump efficiency. -1 for the question. Would like to read the blog ... link above is 404! Actually, you isolate the code as much as you can first, and THEN you get down and dirty. If you used the first one, developers that are debugging your code may say, "What is this dev trying to do?" The most efficient code on the planet will generally lack both maintainability and readability as is probably obvious to most, unless you're the kind that can understand the hand SoA-vectorized, multithreaded SIMD code that Intel writes with inlined assembly, or the most cutting-edge algorithms used in the industry with 40-page mathematical papers published only 2 months ago and 12 libraries worth of code for one incredibly complex data structure. I'm so sick of everyone discussing about this that I get angry and take extremes.. It would be nearly impossible to reason about it in a large scale, but for small pieces of code it is quite obvious. Different groups of developers were asked to optimise for speed, memory usage, readability, robustness and so forth. Not just in programming, in everything. day. 1.2.3 Maintainability Maintainability is the ability of an item to be retained in, or restored to, a specified condition when maintenance is performed by personnel having specified skill levels, using prescribed procedures and resources, at each prescribed level of maintenance and … This idea that scalability improvements yield more bang for the buck over micro-tuned code (ex: cache-friendly access patterns, multithreading, SIMD, etc.) Potential advantages of refactoring may include improved code readability … As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. Because the cost of global warming (from those extra CPU cycles scaled by hundreds of millions of PCs plus massive data center facilities) and mediocre battery life (on user's mobile devices), as required to run their poorly optimized code, rarely shows up on most programmer's performance or peer reviews. True, but why would someone who's never seen C, C++, C#, Objective-C, Java, Perl, PHP, or any other C derivative be trying to decipher your code? Most code will only express some solutions to specific problems that are encapsulated in some abstractions in a modular way (like functions) and that means limiting the knowledge of the context to only what enter that encapsulation (like function parameters). As for readability, they both say the same thing to me, but I have been programming for a while. Nice blog post. As a rule, if there is a framework method provided to do the job ... use it. It pretty much does the same thing. Reliability Code that is constant will not cause dumps which mean that it is more reliable in the application and take fewer downtimes to the business. ... Readability and Code Formatting. Most C# developers are very familiar ", https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111028#111028. The point is that you should not go out of your way to make some thing more efficient if you don't know it is the bottle neck. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585786#2585786, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585800#2585800, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585961#2585961, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2586057#2586057. They seem to frequently write massive [github.com] methods [github.com] with [github.com] deep [github.com] nesting [github.com], and not even leaving some API or class documentation for posterity. Just compare the readable and the efficient versions of, say, quicksort. though they may not know it by that I hope that you can pick some things from this article to improve your code… In the first, the reader must evaluate what the author is trying to accomplish by pulling the last index. It affects the aspects of quality above, including portability, usability and most importantly maintainability. The best practice is to write code that is easily readable. The benefits of improved maintainability will save … Sacrificing readability can increase performance -- but only so much. Also, we have all assumed we are such optimal programmers that any given program we write is so tight it is on the curve. @Jørn Schou-Rode: The compiler won't inline anything. Most programs have plenty of room for improvement in all dimensions. Ask Question Asked today. Sometimes I can only fix certain bugs (get it right) once I get it beautiful (and more understandable). If a program is on the curve, any improvement in one dimension necessarily incurs a cost in the other dimension. For example, I think it's possible to achieve efficiency and readability in some cases, but maintainability might be hard with micro-tuned code. If you cannot look at code you What might be obvious to you might not be obvious to someone else, and vice versa. In that order." So this idea that algorithmic optimizations always trump, say, optimizations related to memory-access patterns is always something I didn't quite agree with. Read Course Works On Readability Affects The Aspects Of Quality Including Portability Usability And Maintainability and other exceptional papers on every subject and topic college can throw at you. striving to write better code each ADDED: Back in ancient times, the cost of the one computer was millions, so optimizing CPU time was very important. For example adding more helpful comments doesn't toll performance. Not only is EndWith more readable, but also more 'correct'. If that happens, do that. I hear programmers say that some code “is unreadable.” I read articles and books about readability and maintainability. are not challenging yourself. It is possible that your attempt to improve a common case means that the compiler does not recognize the pattern anymore and thus can not help you make your code fast. @KeithB - you make a good point, I will add it to my answer. I disagree that it should be done for people who have "C or C++, C#, or any other programming language". For the record, I agree that EndsWith() is more readable and intuitive. Number 2 is better to read and to mantain. They will probably both throw null reference exceptions. It is a good idea to … Visual Basic. The questioner doesn't say how frequently he finds himself in that situation, and the answerers don't seem to claim to be in that situation frequently. It's an economic negative externality, similar to a form of ignored pollution. What does this PR do? I We've worked on a lot of code that, to address performance issues is VERY complex. Mostly, I like Chris Marisic's above rationale. I think it's hard to achieve all three. So, performance and readability are but modestly related -- and in most cases, there's no real big incentives preferring the former over latter. trying to find an answer along these lines - if not I was going to write it myself. maintain. @statenjason: fair enough. Remove unreachable code refactoring. Also, losing performance at the cost of readability can happen only to some extent. It was found that their projects scored high in whatever they were asked to optimise in, but lower in all the other qualities. When writing code, developers often overlook or disregard the importance of structure and readability. Google has it's own standards just as Microsoft and Facebook have their own standards. I personally highly regard code readability however the react docs say they recommend you use custom hooks to share code between two components nowadays over any other alternative. It's clear enough for even my manager to understand! eye and notice things that could be Typically, maintenance will consume over 70% of the total lifecycle cost of a software product [4]. I would definitely say the second one, legibility and simplicity are key! Coming at your question from the side of a developer who works on high-performance code, there are several things to consider in design. But the indexer is probably faster. I come from a C/C++ background and I vote for Endswith! I'd really like to know the community's thoughts on the opinions expressed in the article below. That thread seems to me to presuppose a situation in which there's a forced choice between efficient code or maintainable code. But adding code comments is very important for conveying what is being accomplished. I have five rules to improve code readability. If a method is too complicated to figure out, retract several methods out of it. Motivation Improves readability and maintainability. From an error handling standpoint, EndsWith. What does that mean? I believe that a good design also takes performance into consideration at the time it is written, and that a good developer with a good design can write an efficient program without adversely affecting readability or maintainability. with writing imperative code (even https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585740#2585740, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585753#2585753, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585748#2585748, Thanks down voter. +1 for "Most programs have plenty of room for improvement in all dimensions. In my opinion performance should be a consideration when it's an actual problem (or e.g. of programming called declarative When: Your program has no path to a code snippet, making that code snippet unnecessary. Further, I've managed to beat such algorithms and data structures with more straightforward code relying on general computer science and computer architecture knowledge, not cutting-edge industrial algorithms published by mathematical wizards, that "theoretically" didn't scale quite as well (ex: linearithmic vs. linear) but were micro-tuned, and my version required only about 1/100th of the code the scalable solution required while being faster for larger inputs (relatively faster the larger the inputs became, making my version even more scalable in practice even though it was less scalable theoretically). Complex designs have many more facets and possible test cases to consider making the goal of 100% unit test coverage even more of a pipe dream. Set standards help programmers and teams establish self-improvement routines and healthy habits to follow. As professionals, we should be striving to write better code each day. Anybody can ask a question ... Readability vs. maintainability: nested functions. Exactly. Some of this might summarize others' contributions at this point, but more analogously put, are you playing "Bingo();" or are you "playing a game with a two-dimensional array of random integers, etc.? There are also some famous pieces of highly optimised code that will bend most peoples brains that support the case that highly optimised code is difficult to read and understand. @Matthew: Indeed, but that really does not change my point :), https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585761#2585761, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585781#2585781. Taken from Quake III Arena and attributed to John Carmak, although I think there's been several iterations of this function and it wasn't originally created by him (isn't Wikipedia great?). introduce you to an alternative style Two I think can be feasible. Thus any effort spent on optimization must be proven - not just believed - to bring real benefits, while degrading the long term maintainability of the program as little as possible. What: Removes code that will never be executed. Readability rules, especially if it implies intent. is easier to read, understand, and the why is not evident from the code itself) When the code is not straightforward for deliberate reasons, such as writing it in a more straightforward or self-documenting manner would sacrifice performance. And then it is indeed important to design for performance from the beginning. The thing is most uses cases don't need blinding fast code. ), https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585751#2585751, Are you certain #1 is faster? One of the famous C++ examples is the prevalence of post-increment of counters (or iterators) in loops. Readability and maintainability of generated code Proving that an extensive support library can generate more readable and maintainable code is very easy. And the indexer will fail is the length is 0. Code maintainability results from a variety of factors, one of which is readability. I've learned so much since then. Sign up to join this community. In that order. ", https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111025#111025, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111042#111042, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111033#111033, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111027#111027, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111030#111030, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111050#111050, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111066#111066. Even more so because the OP stated that the conflict of opinion is with someone who comes from a C background. Code standards enforced by automated rule checks improve the readability and maintainability of code—as well as reduce the number of bugs. If it appears to have a bug, how do I know that's not intentional? There have been several good responses, but I think yours made the best attempt at detailing the origins of this mentality. The second, wouldn't the first one crash if the string was empty? The advice to avoid premature optimization is not permission to wantonly employ boneheaded algorithms. I identify lines of code, readability index, class coupling, and cyclomatic complexity for extended discussion; all of these metrics improved through the refactoring process. These code bases have a serious issue with readability and maintainability. You might want to define a macro which can be used to simply make everything uniform. One problem is that finite developer time means that whatever you seek to optimise takes away from spending time on the other issues. Disclaimer . Click here to upload your image More - [ ] Added/updated tests - [ ] Added/updated documentation Additional Notes Co-authored-by: Ludovic Fernandez ldez@users.noreply.github.com It is really hard to make code readable, and maintainable, and efficient all at once. The first one needs a comment and the second one does not. Endswith probably checks to see if the input string is empty. here it is all the way at the bottom! It's up to programmers to let the hardware take advantage of these capabilities more often, by not chewing up every CPU clock cycle available. Both approaches are valid, but the endswith method is easier to read in my opinion. Pure functional languages are about as close to invulnerable to this as one can feasibly get (not even close to invulnerable, but relatively much closer than most). Precisely because highly performing software components are generally orders of magnitude more complex than other software components (all other things being equal). Oops, I forgot something! In many cases IO or user interaction causes much more delay then your algorithm execution causes. One thing I'd suggest that might be contrary to popular opinion is that the smartest algorithmic code is often more difficult to maintain than the most micro-tuned straightforward algorithm. Formatting your code properly is as important as working code. Performant code does not cause ugly code. A comment will increase readability or maintainability. The second block of code bases the thought process on how you handle a string more abstractly and with less regard to its implementation under the covers. If you know from the get go that your algorithm needs to be highly efficient, then it will be one of the factors you use to develop it. If that is performance, then go for it. There's a rather good experiment done on this referenced in Meyer's Code Complete. The rest of the time is spent working on improving whatever is most important. Even then it is not as clear cut, if performance metrics are a critically important requirement then it is imperative that the design have complexity to accomodate such requirements. If you cannot look at code you wrote three months ago with a critical eye and notice things that could be better, then you … I think such views are usually reactions to attempts at premature (micro-)optimization, which is still prevalent, and usually does way more harm than good. easier to read and understand by using I'd find it much easier to maintain, say, Intel's Embree which takes a classic and straightforward BVH algorithm and just micro-tunes the crap out of it than Dreamwork's OpenVDB code for cutting-edge ways of algorithmically accelerating fluid simulation. And most of them had very skewed performance characteristics, being very narrowly applicable. @patrik, @SLC You are correct it will crash with an empty string. The coding standards vary from person to person and from team to team in companies. Maintaining the codebase is time-consuming and not many developers like to do it because it lacks creativity. @AndrewHare is the link to your blog still available? Get it right, get it beautiful, get it fast. The point is to not worry about little things that might make things better. Also, if the "if" statement has one line, DONT BOTHER USING BRACES, USE A SINGLE INDENTION. 1; ... makes it ambiguous from the calling code's standpoint, whether the procedure might re-assign these ByRef values and … While responding to this question, I began to wonder why so many developers believe a good design should not account for performance because doing so would affect readability and/or maintainability. Mu. yeah....this was almost 4 years ago. Almost the opposite is true, as can be seen from the first day a PC appeared on the market. This is a totally unnecessary premature pessimization that MAY not cost you anything, but it MIGHT, so don't do it. You test and document like crazy here, you know it's going to hurt if you have to do any maintenance in this code, but you have to because performance is absolutely critical. Maintainability and Readability Issues. Code Grouping. Personally I think there is another end to the curve where it goes up again on the right hand side (as long as you move far enough to the right (which probably means re-thinking your algorithm)). I think the right answer would be the one that is actually correct. I would expect the C# compiler to do automatic. We want to find the end character. They force thinking patterns upon us which make us have to solve problems with as few special cases as possible using the minimum amount of knowledge possible and without causing any side effects. I am going to start using that. In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the factoring—without changing its external behavior. By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy, 2020 Stack Exchange, Inc. user contributions under cc by-sa. The most efficient code on the planet will generally lack both maintainability and readability as is probably obvious to most, unless you're the kind that can understand the hand SoA-vectorized, multithreaded SIMD code that Intel writes with inlined assembly, or the most cutting-edge algorithms used in the industry with 40-page mathematical papers published only 2 months ago and 12 libraries … As others noted, performance optimized code is more complex, harder to read and maintain, and more bug-prone than the simplest working solution. Proper declarative code is easier to read, understand, and maintain. Unless and until it does not affect the program performance, no problem you can use either way. When you have the choice between two designs that are equal in complexity, choose the one that has the best performance characteristics. Aggarwal claims that source code readability and documentation readability are both critical to the maintainability of a project [1]. C. I think that makes it clear which is the more maintainable answer. However, overall simplicity, readability and maintainability is still more important. I’ve learned them in all kinds of projects, teams, and organizations. Code maintainability is a qualitative measurement of how easy it is to make changes, and the risks associated with such changes. You need to utilize methods that are easily explained. But, like beauty, readability lies in the eyes of the beholder. So a good design isolates the complex, performance intensive parts from the rest of the code, which is kept as simple and clean as possible. This code is ment to illustrate programming styles and not to reflect production code, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585726#2585726. Iterator type specifiers tend to be long and used frequently, especially in loop constructs. It would have been so much easier if the system could revolve around a couple dozen more widely-applicable data structures, and I think that could have been the case if they were micro-optimized much better. @Justin, no. A good practice to increase the readability of variables is to keep them in the smallest scope. Such is the case with most software. thanks though! Maintainability is one of the fundamental attributes of software, according to the ISO/IEC 9126 paper. We just need to compare the code generated by VB Migration Partner with the code coming out from a “traditional” VB6 conversion tool that has a less extensive support library. With that being said it should be noted that a poorly performing software component could perform poorly just because it was foolishly written and unnecessarily complex based on the ignorance of the original author, (making 8 database calls to build a single entity when just one would do, completely unnecessary code that results in a single code path regardless, etc...) These cases are more a matter of improving code quality and performance increases happening as a consequence of the refactor and NOT the intended consequence necessarily. EndsWith properly returns false for empty string input whereas the other test will throw an exception trying to index with -1. A code block and a function body create a scope for const and let variables. How about a comment. The danger is a developer who wastes a sprint on a relatively simple feature trying to squeeze a few extra milliseconds out of his component. It’s important to have code that’s easy to understand than it is to have code that’s quick to write. Since the functions generating iterators have a common format, the type specifier can be replaced without obscuring the meaning of code while improving readability and maintainability. So the cost/benefit ratio of thinking about performance at all is mentally skewed from reality. They're not readable. Why: Improve readability and maintainability by removing code that is superfluous and will never be executed. The JITer may, but it depends on many things including how much code is behind the method call. Otherwise do this. Not doing so tends to lead to microoptimizations, which might lead to more obfuscated code just to save a few microseconds here and there, which in turn leads to less maintainable and less readable code. Previously, we got ourselves comfortable with the idea of unit tests (the basic concepts, its reason of existence...etc), and introduced three pillars of a good unit test: trustworthiness, maintainability and readability.In the last article, we dived into how a good test can/should be trustworthy. Then the cost of developing and maintaining the code became greater than the cost of the computers, so optimization fell way out of favor compared with programmer productivity. inspiration is the association of code readability and software maintainability. When I read it I thought this is a straw man to evict the only true answer: "Because they don't use python. And remember, anyone who's been coding in Python or VB these days will have seen one of these languages at some point. Because experienced programmers have learned that it's true. Not to be looking for a needle in a haystack, but isn't "legible" the right word, instead of readable or readbly? It also does away with the potential to make typing mistakes etc with the more complicated form.. EndsWith is probably safer. Do not prematurely pessimize. More the readable code, greater the chances of having easier to modify, less mistakes, more maintainable, easy to reuse, and more reliable. I personally find the second one more readable myself but that is just my opinion. The second one is more declarative in style but I can't tell you objectively if it is more readable sine readability is very subjective. Welcome to the part 3 of our unit testing series! It is nevertheless true that with the enormous development of hardware resources in recent decades, for most of the programs written today, performance ceased to be a major limiting factor. Don't write spitefully awful code, but if it just has to be X fast, then make it X fast. If you're writing Java, and you have a collection you will be calling, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111038#111038. programming. I cant access. If and ONLY if performance is absolutely critical, you get down and dirty. This was needed because of performance issues. With the first example I must discover the intent - which is left for interpretation. And I am talking here about high level languages. These inspections highlight problems that are potentially more subjective, such as short, disemvoweled identifier names. One immediate example that comes to mind is that my last project included 8,192 manually sharded SQL tables. challenge you to write code that is By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie Policy, Privacy Policy, and our Terms of Service. Before that, some hundreds or thousends Mainframe (each one virtually equipped with their own power plant) used much less energy than today, where 1 CPU minute computes much more than then at a fraction of the cost and energy demand. Here's what I mean. Here's the most famous I think. (max 2 MiB). It should be noted that this does not mean write whatever you want without concern to performance. Maintainability: If the code is un-readable it's useless, no matter how fast it is. You should not be doing anything that is clearly inefficient. better, then you have not improved and The most common theme in the post: make your intent as clear as possible and declarative programming helps you do that. @statenjason: This just shows how unclear that can be, since the example isn't even doing string comparison, it is doing character comparison. is something I'd challenge, at least having worked in an industry filled with extremely complex data structures and algorithms (the visual FX industry), especially in areas like mesh processing, because the bang might be big but the buck is extremely expensive when you introduce new algorithms and data structures no one has ever heard of before since they're brand new. I mention this case because micro-optimization can potentially improve maintainability tremendously in such a case if it means the difference between hundreds of micro-pessimized data structures that can't even be used safely for strict read-only purposes which involve cache misses left and right vs. just dozens of micro-optimized data structures that perform so much more efficiently all around. It is not so much that those things cannot coexist. wrote three months ago with a critical a requirement). So in my industry at least, I'd like to see more people familiar with computer architecture micro-optimizing more, as Intel has when they stepped into the scene, as opposed to coming up with thousands and thousands of new algorithms and data structures. For example, the following function is an implementation of binary search algorithm: ", 2020 Stack Exchange, Inc. user contributions under cc by-sa. I know, it can be a long time in programming :), https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2687525#2687525, .net code readability and maintainability [closed]. In my experience, programs only get near any curve by being tuned, tweaked, hammered, waxed, and in general turned into "code golf". The question is about maintainability. Code that’s hard to … I was making the point that the code isn't really the same (and I was revising my statement as you down voted. But I wonder if this fringe case is enough to merit a guideline. And it definitely won't be be re-used. I much prefer the second (EndsWith) version. After all, the most readable code for most of us mortals maps very intuitively to human thought patterns, and human thoughts patterns are inherently error-prone: "If this happens, do this. It's usually maintainability that suffers when you seek a lot of the other two. So the first block of code bases its thought process on the concept of an array of characters. My answer... most developers are bad at their jobs, https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/111021/why-do-so-many-developers-believe-performance-readability-and-maintainability/111032#111032. 1. That might naturally overwhelm any programmer that don't feel focused enough for the task. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2585704/net-code-readability-and-maintainability/2585728#2585728. Thanks to everybody involved! Hardware designers have been working hard adding power save and clock scaling features to the latest CPUs. +1 for "Do not prematurely pessimize". Active today. Remember that in classic C, the only difference between a "string" and an array of characters is that terminating null character '\0', so we had to more actively treat them accordingly and to make sure that we did not run off the end of the array. A few lines of seemingly innocuous code here and there could bring it to a halt to the point of making us reconsider the entire design, and high-level languages which aim to be as readable as possible are no exceptions to such human design errors. A string's == is not the same between the two languages. We can custom-write anything as well! When you write for high performance, after you fix any algorithmic optilizations, you get into details that requires far more knowledge about the context. It is not difficult, but requires more effort on the part of the reader. In computer programming, readability refers to the ease with which a human reader can comprehend the purpose, control flow, and operation of source code. While I acknowledge that there are extreme cases, Why do many developers insist an efficient program/design will result in poor readability and/or poor maintainability, and consequently that performance should not be a design consideration? Write your code simple so even a newbie developer can fix it when needed. However, it gets more complicated with more than one character in the endswith argument. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. As professionals, we should be We've worked with code that is lean and mean and doesn't have performance issues. EndsWidth is more readable to someone who has never seen C or C++, C#, or any other programming language. In that order'. What does each sample actually say? I worked in a legacy codebase before where almost every single user operation had its own unique data structure and algorithm behind it (adding up to hundreds of exotic data structures). If you are talking about preparing a string for something greater and that does not necessarily need to focus on the mechanics of the ways that strings are built -- or you just want to keep it simple -- go with the second style. I think most programmers get that gut feeling simply because most of the time, performance code is code based on a lot more informations (about the context, hardware knowledge, global architecture) than any other code in applications. IMO, the intent of the original author is clearer in the second example. Now, however, another cost is becoming greater than the cost of computers, the cost of powering and cooling all those data centers is now becoming greater than the cost of all the processors inside. And isolate the code in the third point, as much as possible. +1: "Get it right, get it beautiful, get it fast. The readability of the software is strongly associated to its maintainability, and is thus the crucial feature in whole quality of software. I like the rule of thumb: 'get it beautiful, get it fast. With effective micro-optimizations, people could potentially find fewer and fewer reasons to invent new algorithms. After that, you can make your program as much readable as you want without affecting performance. It's more fragile than we often care to think. More complicated code is harder to maintain and harder for other developers to pick-up (both are costs that must be considered). The .EndsWith(...) is probably faster to grasp without considering context. 03/10/2020; 2 minutes to read; In this article. Reliability was first practiced in the early start-up days for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) when Robert Lusser, working with Dr. Wernher von Braun's rocketry program, developed what is known as \"Lusser's Law\" . Let us quickly see some of the formatting issues from vertical as well as horizontal perspectives. Assuming a well designed component however, it will always be less complex than a similarly well designed component tuned for performance (all other things being equal). You should start by supporting your statement that many developers insist that efficiency leads to unmaintainability. :) Sharing is caring. I forgot the exact quote but someone once said that if Rome was built like software, it would only take a bird landing on a wall to bring it toppling down. I think the main criteria should be which of these most clearly says what the developer wants to do. Typically you have to compromise a bit in one of those three, if not two, like compromising readability for maintainability, or compromising maintainability for efficiency. Reliability is the wellspring for the other RAM system attributes of availability and maintainability. You can also provide a link from the web. Yet, the total energy demand for computing is higher than before. Why do so many developers believe performance, readability, and maintainability cannot coexist? The second example is telling me the intent. 1)Access the character at position one less than the length, and check if it equals the character 'r'. Code Review Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for peer programmer code reviews. SK-logic: In my opinion that's one of the best parts of all the stackexchange sites, since one gets to question the obvious, which can be healthy every now and then. "When one tries to counter such views, it is easy to fall into - or at least look like - the other extreme" I have issues all the time with people thinking I hold the opposite view when I'm merely balancing out the pros with the cons. Add comments and create some functions to improve readability and maintainability. And that's partially because they don't map intuitively to human thought. Armed with that knowledge I can proceed with evaluating the implementation. However, If you spend your time tuning every bit of code to be fast, guess what you did not spend your time doing? This honors thesis is derived from . After a certain point, you have to resort to "real" means like better algorithms and hardware. Proper declarative code Making your code clean and maintainable. In 2006, Emilio and Valerdi [3] highlighted the role of code readability on software development cost. In many cases you have no business to go anywhere near micro-optimization yet. At the same time, compilers are very good at optimizing common cases. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened. For more information on software attributes, refer to the paper at bit.ly/VCpe9q. Edit: By the way, I'm not saying this code cannot be beautiful, and it should be made as beautiful as it can be, but it's still going to be very complex and often convoluted compared to less optimized code. When one tries to counter such views, it is easy to fall into - or at least look like - the other extreme. which way of doing these types of operations is better? Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structure, and/or implementation of the software, while preserving its functionality. There Currently is a local debate as to which code is more readability, We have one programmer who comes from a c background and when that programmer codes it looks like, We have another programmer that doesn't like this methodology and would rather use. Meanwhile some of the most maintainable code I've ever encountered was reasonably efficient but extremely hard to read, since they were written in functional languages. By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie Policy, Privacy Policy, and our Terms of Service. Other Very nice summary, with which I agree 90%. If these systems interact with each other, this should happen so that this system can do this... oh wait, what about that system when this event is triggered?" In general readability and uber maintainability are conflicting ideas in my opinion. In this article, I will +1 because this ain't C, and I even like C. @Dinah, consider a person who's done Java but looking at some C#. This refactoring applies to: C#. And it gets really dirty in there, with caching schemes, lazy evaluation, memory layout optimization for caching, blocks of inline intrinsics or assembly, layer-upon-layer of templates, etc. I believe that performance and cleanliness are basically uncorrelated. The setup to select from 1 table is a lot simpler than to select from and maintain 8,192 shards. "EndsWith" is less ambiguous. In some cases, increased code readability will result in minor performance penalties (let’s be honest; these cases will be rare). readability and maintainability. However, the first example is slightly faster as it uses no actual functions and thus requires no stack. Proper formatting increases readability and hence maintainability, and also give readers the impression that the code was written by professionals. Because when you move to difference hardware, even something as small as a processor with a different cache size, these things may change. program is relatedtoits maintainability, and is thus a key factor in overall software quality. 2. Readability of source code. Use a profiler and see that 1) what you have now is an issue and 2) what you changed it to was an improvement.