The three questions that lead to maintainable code

Looking at a line of code, ask yourself three questions:

• What is the code trying to do?
• Why is it trying to do that?
• How is it trying to do that?

If you can find answers to these questions easily, the code is maintainable.

Truth is shorter than fiction

I want my blog to have three qualities:

• Quality, because the only noble goal for a blog is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of discourse.
• Sincerity, for the same reason.
• Regular updates, to not lose either of my readers.

Consequently, I am going to try a new blogging format: exactly five sentences, at most one image and at most one code sample.