Why does nobody talk about how messy beginner code repos get

I was looking through some old projects from last spring on my GitHub and almost threw up. There were like 15 different files named 'test_final_v3' just sitting there with no comments at all. I thought I was being smart just saving everything, but now I can't even figure out what half of it does. Has anyone else gone back to their early stuff and just had to start over completely?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_knight1911d ago

I read somewhere that messy code is just proof you were learning.

mark_green11d ago

Oh man, I see that floating around all the time. It's a nice thought but I think it misses the point. Messy code usually means you didn't care enough to clean up after yourself. Being new and learning is fine, but you should still try to write clean stuff from the start. Way I see it, messy code just means you'll have a bad time debugging later.

nina_hall4811d ago

@grace_knight19 I get where that quote is coming from, but I see it differently. Those 50 "temporary" comments I left in my first project? They're still there three years later, mocking me. Learning is messy, sure, but that doesn't mean the code has to be. You can write something simple and clean even when you're just starting out. @mark_green hit it right - it's more about not caring to fix things later. A couple extra minutes to name a variable something decent or delete a dead function saves you hours of head-banging down the road.