Today, another tweet about “how can I write the cleanest, best architected code?” gets piles of book references in response.
Yes, we want to be good at writing code. We want to write the best code. The best code for what? “Writing code” is an abstraction, like a transitive verb without an object. I can’t just “write code,” I must “write code to….”
The work is software development is not typing, it is making decisions. To make those decisions, we have to understand the details of code and technology, yes. We also have to understand the context and purpose, what we are writing the code to do.
My advice for “What should I read in order to write better code?” is usually, a book or magazine or internal memos about the business. Better is having conversations about the business with the experts inside your company, and to do that well, you need the vocabulary.
We need both the specific technical understanding and the business understanding. It’s so much easier to push for technical understanding. Because the business understanding is specific to each context. I can’t make a wide-audience tweet recommending a book, you have to find that closer-in.
Supplement Twitter with kitchen conversations or internal Slack channels that give you a broader perspective on the purpose of your work in the specific context you work in.
