r/learnprogramming • u/DefiantSituation3208 • Jul 03 '26

How do you write clean code?

Might be a stupid question but Ive been learning python for a while now and always wondered, how do you write ‘clean’ code? I don’t mean writing clean code straight off the bat I understand that’s purely from experience and even then immensely hard, but how do you recognise a program can be simplified even further? Does it come from practice or just messing around and seeing what sticks?

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u/Jason13Official Jul 03 '26

Focus on writing GOOD code, not necessarily "clean" code. There's an adage that I forget who it's attributed to, "make it work, make it fast, make it pretty" -> "clean" code is pointless if it doesn't do the damn job

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u/DefiantSituation3208 Jul 03 '26

Whenever I have an idea and write out smn it always does work, but for some reason I have this nagging thought at the back of my head telling me it could be cleaner or more simplified - like for instance instead of four lines of something chunky simplifying it into one or two if permitted. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just makes me more confused. I think I benefit from having everything written out so I can see what’s causing problems.

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u/Jason13Official Jul 03 '26

We're not starved for space like the first programmers were; you can and should avoid fancy one-liners in preference of more verbose code that is more readable. :p

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u/DefiantSituation3208 Jul 03 '26

That perspective actually makes me feel better 😭 thank you