Writing Boring Code on Purpose

🎯 The Goal

Code should be easy to read, easy to change, and easy to debug. Fancy code is fun to write but hard to maintain.

✅ What "Boring" Means

Boring code is:

• Predictable: You know what it does without thinking
• Explicit: No hidden magic or clever tricks
• Standard: Uses common patterns everyone knows
• Simple: Straightforward logic, easy to follow

❌ What I Avoid

• Clever one-liners: They're impressive but hard to read
• Over-engineering: Patterns where simple code would work
• Magic methods: Code that does things implicitly
• Premature optimization: Optimizing before you know it's needed

💡 Examples

Boring (Good)

function calculateTotal(items) {
    let total = 0;
    for (let item of items) {
        total += item.price;
    }
    return total;
}

Clever (Bad)

const calculateTotal = items => items.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);

The clever version is shorter, but the boring version is clearer. When debugging at 2 AM, clarity wins.

⚠️ When to Be Clever

Sometimes clever code is justified:

• Performance-critical sections (with comments explaining why)
• Well-known patterns (like map/filter/reduce for arrays)
• Domain-specific optimizations (when they're necessary)

But default to boring. Make it clever only when you have a good reason.

💭 My Take

Boring code is maintainable code. Your future self (and your teammates) will thank you.

Write code that a junior developer can understand. If they can't, it's too clever.