It's striking to me how out of touch Martin seems to be with the realities of software engineering in this transcript. Stylistic refactors that induce performance regressions, extremely long and tortured method names for three-line methods, near-total animus towards comments ... regardless of who is right/wrong about what, those takes seem like sophomoric extremism at its worst, not reasoned pragmatism that can be applied to software development in the large.
When I encounter an Uncle Bob devotee, I'm nearly always disappointed with the sheer rigidity of their approach: everything must be reduced thus, into these kind of pieces, because it is Objectively Better software design, period. Sure, standard default approaches and best practices are important things to keep in mind, but the amount of dogma displayed by folks who like Martin is really shocking and concerning.
I worry that his approach allows a certain kind of programmer to focus on like ... aesthetic, dogmatic uniformity (and the associated unproductivity of making primarily aesthetically-motivated, dogmatic changes rather than enhancements, bugfixes, or things that other coders on a project agree improves maintainability) instead of increasing their skills and familiarity with their craft.
Maintainability/appropriate factoring are subjective qualities that depend a lot on the project, the other programmers on it, and the expectations around how software engineering is done in that environment.
Pretending that's not true--that a uniform "one clean code style to rule them all" is a viable approach--does everyone involved a disservice. Seasoned engineers trying to corral complexity, new engineers in search of direction and rigor, customers waiting for engineering to ship a feature, business stakeholders confused as to why three sprints have gone by with "refactor into smaller methods" being the only deliverable--everyone.
When I encounter an Uncle Bob devotee, I'm nearly always disappointed with the sheer rigidity of their approach: everything must be reduced thus, into these kind of pieces, because it is Objectively Better software design, period. Sure, standard default approaches and best practices are important things to keep in mind, but the amount of dogma displayed by folks who like Martin is really shocking and concerning.
I worry that his approach allows a certain kind of programmer to focus on like ... aesthetic, dogmatic uniformity (and the associated unproductivity of making primarily aesthetically-motivated, dogmatic changes rather than enhancements, bugfixes, or things that other coders on a project agree improves maintainability) instead of increasing their skills and familiarity with their craft.
Maintainability/appropriate factoring are subjective qualities that depend a lot on the project, the other programmers on it, and the expectations around how software engineering is done in that environment.
Pretending that's not true--that a uniform "one clean code style to rule them all" is a viable approach--does everyone involved a disservice. Seasoned engineers trying to corral complexity, new engineers in search of direction and rigor, customers waiting for engineering to ship a feature, business stakeholders confused as to why three sprints have gone by with "refactor into smaller methods" being the only deliverable--everyone.