How true hackers write JavaScript
Maybe I&#x27;ll respond in a general way to what&#x27;s come up here. This code isn&#x27;t unreadable, or accidentally readable—it was written specifically for readability. Similarly, it isn&#x27;t unmaintainable or accidentally maintainable—it is written specifically for maintainability. Unlike in most programming debates, we can actually prove this. Here is the proof: I&#x27;ve talked to everyone whose job it has ever been to read this code, and all agree that it is easy to read. I&#x27;ve also talked to everyone whose job it has ever been to maintain this code, and all agree that it is easy to maintain. The point is that readability and maintainability are determined by <i>who</i> is reading or maintaining, and the &#x27;who&#x27; that matters for determining that is the team responsible for a system.<p>If that sounds strange or obviously wrong, it may be that you&#x27;re taking certain widely-held beliefs about programming as if they were truths about programming. Also, the conventions of the larger codebase which this small program is drawn from carry a lot of information, and free us to work with concision and simplicity that aren&#x27;t so common in production codebases.<p>I know this sounds weird, but hope that it will stir curiosity in one or two of you. By far the biggest mistake I made as a young programmer was staying within what one might call the shallowculture for longer than I needed to. The outstanding properties of the shallowculture are that it &#x27;knows&#x27; how to program and &#x27;knows&#x27; to dismiss uncommon approaches to programming as wrong and inferior. If you notice yourself reacting this way, my grizzled advice is to pause and start questioning. Look into it deeply, and you&#x27;ll find that this seeming &#x27;knowledge&#x27; is spurious. That will open up for you more satisfying ways of making software. For example, you&#x27;ll find ways of avoiding the complexity bloat that is routinely lamented in Hacker News threads as a plague on our industry.