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Comment by EllaMentry | Hacker News Reader

Honestly this does not read well. You have some decent points (not unique points to any professional software engineer but good points) - there are several grammatical errors "to(sic) much magic" and you have not provided any examples.

You state that you are new to the project - from the writing style it sounds like you are fairly young, so I would guess this is your first programming gig? Either way take a professional writing course.

Provide examples - where are there problems with code clarity? Where are the repeated sections? Simply stating there are problems help nobody - you need data - how many repeated lines? What is the overhead of this code? How many special cases etc.

Good luck!

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Thanks for your review! I'm aware that they are not unique points. They all come either from hard experience or from things I've read from people I respect over the years.

It's not my first programming gig, and as for young, it's relative. I'm in my early thirties. Unfortunately, I am the most senior person there.

I am surprised my writing style would lead anyone to think I'm young. Are there any specifics there? I have taken professional writing courses, but writing is still something I try to improve. I will keep the suggestion of enrolling in one in mind, though!

That particular gramatical error was really a typo. Either way, if I decide to send it at all, I will definitely be proofreading it again. Even though I re-read it once, I missed that one and would probably have missed it every time.

I haven't provided examples for three reasons. First, I'm hoping it prompts discussion. Second, many of what I would include as examples are things that either I or they have pointed out previously. Third, it is already very long; details will bog down the pace. Given those reasons, would examples still help?

That is interesting, from a reread, I would say the "youngness" is a product of the length and over-descriptiveness.

""Magic" is my term for "I don't know how it works because I haven't taken the time to figure it out yet" - it's an attribute of my understanding of a thing, not of the thing itself; that is, it's the Clarkian definition." - No one speaks like that - it makes it sound like you are trying to come across smarter than you really are - Every developer under the sun understands what you mean when you say "Magic"

At it's most essential it sounds like you gobbled up a "software best practices book" and then spouted chapter titles without any context - Examples definitely help!

e.g. <Module Z> is a great example of why we need to keep our code clean, since I joined the team no fewer than X lines have been added resulting in this module having Y different responsibilities - because <Module Z> is so bloated we have Q different tickets in our backlog which will result in code changes to it.

<Module T> and <Module R> are a perfect example of where we can utilize code reuse. Both contain a function Y, which we make heavy use of - we should consider extracting this into a common library function etc. etc.

If you make an actual proposal instead of a complaint, people are more likely to listen - it is a lot harder to argue against raw data than it is a personal opinion.

Interesting. My description of magic is there because I specifically see two programming-related definitions.

When used with Rails, it's usually derogatory, and it means something like "something tricky or obscure and complex that is done in order to provide an easy interface", and in that sense, it is usually derogatory and used when the someone believes there is a straightforward way that may be an even easier interface, or is at worst, not much more cumbersome than the interface that is presented.

The other definition - the one I used, is, for example, how many developers would answer "How does the Linux syscall mechanism work?" In that case, the syscall interface is very much needed to provide an easy interface, and it's not incredibly complex.

One often seems like the other until you look into it, but I still think they are separate.

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