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# Top 10 Clean Code Rules

**[Community Picks](https://daily.dev/sources/community)** · 2 min read · 2749 upvotes · 124 comments

## Summary

Guidance for writing clean code includes no code comments, deleting dead code, unit testing boundaries, using positive conditionals, adhering to standard guidelines, consistent naming, avoiding complexity, using exceptions instead of return codes, keeping methods small, and applying the Boy Scout rule to always leave the code cleaner than you found it.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://blog.stackademic.com/top-10-clean-code-rules-831fb34caff7>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@orcdev** · 139 upvotes

> I don't believe all code comments should be removed, but I've definitely encountered many unnecessary ones throughout my career. :D

**@alissondereg** · 27 upvotes

> I understand the impact of valuing positive conditional over negative, but I really value the [Return Early Pattern](https://medium.com/swlh/return-early-pattern-3d18a41bba8), and in most cases it is a negative conditional such as "Not logged in" or "Not valid credentials". Of course those can be replaced with alternative functions like "isGuest( )" or "isInvalidCredentials( credentials )" but I don't think it's worth the bother

**@itsiskandar** · 7 upvotes

> It's important to not take the book's advice to the extreme though. Refactoring everything is not always good. Do it only where you think is suitable and make you not waste too much time on adjusting the parameter of the function/component in the future.

**@digeomel** · 5 upvotes

> This book has done so much damage already, somebody should write a revised edition!

**@wpspeeddoctor** · 4 upvotes

> I agree and follow most rules. What I don't do are exceptions.
> Additionally, I write procedural code in small functions and use OOP only when it makes sense. Pushing OOP everywhere I think is a big mistake.

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---

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