Ask HN: What are some examples of good code?
This stuff about "reading code" is basically bullshit and nobody does it.  http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/> Seibel: I’m still curious about this split between what people say and what they actually do. Everyone says, “People should read code” but few people seem to actually do it. I’d be surprised if I interviewed a novelist and asked them what the last novel they had read was, and they said, “Oh, I haven’t really read a novel since I was in grad school.” Writers actually read other writers but it doesn’t seem that programmers really do, even though we say we should.> Abelson: Yeah. You’re right. But remember, a lot of times you crud up a program to make it finally work and do all of the things that you need it to do, so there’s a lot of extraneous stuff around there that isn’t the core idea.> Seibel: So basically you’re saying that in the end, most code isn’t worth reading?> Abelson: Or it’s built from an initial plan or some kind of pseudocode. A lot of the code in books, they have some very cleaned-up version that doesn’t do all the stuff it needs to make it work.