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Motivation: new people can read the code ane figure out what the loop is doing. I've seen too many loops that seemed to be some standard cs101 algorthym but something was subtilly differet and so it took a long time to figure it out. I was sometimes the person who wrote the original - 10+ years ago.

plus I'm now getting old enough to realize early retirement might be possible. That means I need to make sure new people understand my code so I'm not called back inside from my (whatever my next life is)

just rewriting it because isn't good. However rewriting it in a more expressive way is better.

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john_the_writer 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I had a boss call me a tumbleweed dev (when I was much younger). I would clean up bits, but this would mean the QA had to re-test code that was already tested and in production. I never forgot that term, and now if it an't broke, I don't touch it. (even if I don't like reading it)

	▲	bluGill 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		that is both right and wrong. Right that they need to QA it, which is a cost. Depending on current ecconomics one they don't want to pay today. Wrong though because eventually they will need to pay it - when someone needs to spend the time to figure out what the weird code is doing (CS101 algorithms are not always obvious when not given a name even though simple once you realize what is happening). Not cleaning things up as you go is why many projects have declared bankruptcy and done a billion dollar rewrite. We learn things over time, but if you don't apply the lessons you end up with really bad code. OTOH, just changing everything all the time isn't right either. Find the correct balance so your code is constantly improving and as a result maintanable for centuries.

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foota 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In isolation, sure writing code more expressively isn't a bad thing, and might be fine as an exercise for becoming more familiar with some part of the codebase, but I don't think it's a good use of time for the author or reviewers to go and do this without some other motivation or if you're touching the code already.

	▲	bluGill 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Getting someone new is itself motivation. And if the result is better code thateis a good use of time. often manual loops have unnoticed off by one errors as well so the above exercise can fix weird bugs nobody has figured out.