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One piece of feedback from a senior dev 5 years ago changed how I write code

I was fresh out of a coding bootcamp in Austin and thought I was hot stuff. This senior guy pulled me aside after a code review and said "your code works but nobody wants to maintain it." He showed me how I was nesting everything 5 levels deep and naming variables stuff like 'x2' and 'tempData'. It stung but I started reading Clean Code after that and now I rewrite my own old stuff and cringe. Has anyone else had a blunt critique that actually stuck with them?
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harper_owens
And that nesting thing is still the first thing I look for when I review anyone else's code now.
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cameronb52
cameronb521d agoMost Upvoted
Opened up a project from 3 years ago last week and found a function called "doTheThing" with 400 lines of if statements... just sat there staring at the screen for a minute. It's like leaving old voicemails to your past self. Clean Code really is the gift that keeps on giving though.
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