What Clean Code and Fighting Global Warming Have In Common?

A Tale of Human Behavior, Individual Gains and Shared Future Costs.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

It is not that Dirty Code produces Global Warming, but the same behavior that drives towards Global Warming also drives towards Dirty Code.

Some days ago, I watched a critical video:

“Any code gets messier with time unless we make an effort to keep the code clean.” — Robert C. Martin

Robert C. Martin’s warning is not new: code will inevitably degrade over time unless we actively work to keep it clean. In the beginning, it might seem faster to cut corners. But as time goes on, each new iteration delivers less value, costs escalate, and the project grinds to a near-halt. The code, in a sense, rots.

If we do not keep the code clean eventually, costs rise, and the project almost…