- Foundations
- Beginning Again: God’s Mercies in the New Year
- What Are My Defaults as a Programmer?
- Vocation, Not Just Output
- Clean Code Is Not Just Style — It’s Responsibility
Clean code is often treated as a matter of taste.
Tabs or spaces.Snake case or camel case.Long functions or many small ones.
These debates can give the impression that “clean code” is largely aesthetic — a preference shaped by personal background or team culture. But this framing misses something crucial. At its heart, clean code is not about style. It is about responsibility.
Every line of code is written not just for machines, but for people. Someone will read it. Someone will maintain it. Someone will depend on it working correctly — often long after the original author has moved on.
Clean code is an act of care for those people.
Code Lives Longer Than We Expect
Most software outlives its original intentions. Projects that were meant to be temporary become critical. Proofs of concept turn into production systems. “We’ll rewrite it later” quietly becomes “we can’t afford to touch this”.
Anyone who has worked with legacy systems knows this reality well.
The problem with messy code is not that it looks untidy. The problem is that it creates cognitive load. It forces future readers to spend energy deciphering intent rather than solving problems. Over time, this friction accumulates into frustration, risk, and burnout.
Clean code, by contrast, lowers the cost of understanding. It communicates intention clearly. It makes change safer. It allows teams to move forward without fear.
When we write code, we are shaping the working conditions of people we may never meet.
That alone gives our choices moral weight.
Responsibility Beyond the Present Moment
It is tempting to optimise for the present. Deadlines loom. Stakeholders push for delivery. The pressure to “just get it working” can feel overwhelming — especially when resources are limited.
Sometimes, compromises are necessary. Clean code is not about perfection. It is about intentional trade-offs rather than habitual shortcuts.
The difference matters.
Choosing to defer refactoring because of a genuine constraint is different from ignoring clarity because it feels optional. One is a conscious decision. The other is abdication.
Responsibility means recognising that technical debt is not abstract. It will be paid by someone — in time, stress, risk, or lost opportunity.
Often, that someone is future you.
Clean Code as Communication
At its core, code is a form of communication.
Function names, variable names, structure, and comments all tell a story about what the code is meant to do and why it exists. When that story is unclear, readers are forced to infer intent. Inference introduces error.
Clean code reduces guesswork.
It answers questions like:
- What problem is this solving?
- Why is this approach used?
- What assumptions does this rely on?
- Where are the boundaries?
These answers do not need to be verbose. They need to be clear.
Naming alone carries immense responsibility. Poor names obscure meaning. Good names reveal it. Choosing names carefully is not pedantry; it is hospitality.
You are welcoming the reader into your thinking.
The Human Cost of Messy Code
Messy code affects more than velocity. It affects people.
Developers working in poorly structured codebases experience higher cognitive fatigue. They hesitate to make changes. They fear breaking things. Over time, this erodes confidence and motivation.
This is not a personal failing. It is an environmental one.
Clean code creates psychological safety. It invites engagement. It signals that care has been taken — and that care can be continued.
From an ethical perspective, this matters. Organisations talk often about wellbeing, sustainability, and retention. Clean code is part of that conversation, whether it is acknowledged or not.
When we dismiss clean code as optional, we externalise the cost of our shortcuts onto others.
In collaborative environments, clean code becomes even more important.
Teams rely on shared understanding. When code is inconsistent, opaque, or overly clever, it privileges insiders and excludes newcomers. Knowledge becomes siloed. Power concentrates around those who “understand how it works”.
Clean code resists this dynamic. It democratises understanding.
Readable systems are easier to onboard into, easier to review, and easier to challenge. They reduce reliance on gatekeepers and make teams more resilient to change.
From this perspective, clean code is not just a technical concern. It is a justice issue.
Clean Code and Humility
There is also a spiritual dimension to clean code that is rarely named: humility.
Writing clean code requires admitting that you will not remember everything. That someone else may need to understand your work. That your clever solution may confuse rather than impress.
It resists the temptation to show off. It prioritises service over self-expression.
In this way, clean code aligns closely with virtues like patience, generosity, and love of neighbour — even if those words are never used in technical contexts.
What Clean Code Is (and Isn’t)
Clean code is not:
- Over-engineering
- Excessive abstraction
- Endless refactoring for its own sake
Clean code is:
- Clarity over cleverness
- Intention over impulse
- Care over convenience
It is knowing when to stop. It is documenting why something is the way it is. It is leaving a system slightly better than you found it.
Sometimes that means a full refactor. Sometimes it means improving a variable name. Sometimes it means adding a comment that saves someone else an hour of confusion.
Small acts compound.
Building Responsibly This Year
As this year unfolds, you will make thousands of small decisions in your technical work. Most of them will feel insignificant in isolation. But together, they will form the foundation others stand on.
Clean code is one way we take responsibility for that foundation.
It is not about aesthetics. It is about care. Care for colleagues, users, organisations, and yourself.
You do not need to write perfect code. But you can write honest code — code that communicates clearly, respects its readers, and acknowledges its limits.
That kind of code lasts.
