Source Code as an act of communication

Taking from the last lon­ger pie­ce and a very good idea that @codePrincess lin­ked to in a blog post: Code that says what it does. Of cour­se, source code also is a medi­um of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on bet­ween human and human – but the per­son you are wri­ting for may just be the future you. And just as the user inter­face is an act of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, so is your source code.

Do you want to impress the rea­der with your skills in opti­mi­zing, but pro­du­cing hard that is extre­me­ly hard to read? Do you want to be con­side­ra­te and share a lot of your thought pro­cess in your code, or is it bet­ter to have the rea­der gues­sing as to why you cho­se a par­ti­cu­lar road to imple­men­ta­ti­on? Try to be nice to some­bo­dy who will have to live with your code later on – it just may be yourself!