Why developers write bad code - Kevlin Henney

Why developers write bad code - Kevlin Henney - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VurciuaCQiA

When you ask somebody to write code badly, they can't do it. But if you give them a system, and this is the most important thing I want to get across here is people are not software developers, are not stupid or malicious by and large. What they do is they follow codes, they follow conventions, they don't even know. They pick them up and what happens is that what we often consider to be bad code is a product that is systematic. It is not coincidental or random. Actually, it turns out that if you say we're going to do log and throw, write that function as if you were doing log and throw. You'll be able to write that function if I give you a drop down menu of here. I like these style choices. So I basically took a number of these style choices and took a simple problem and then coded it in their style, or rather I coded it using those. And I was surprised at how close it came to their style. It was a revelation to me. It's like, yeah. What we often think of as poor code is systematically created. It is not created arbitrarily or with malice.