The Golden Rule: Optimize for Readability Over Writability

You spend roughly 10% of your time typing code and 90% reading existing code, debugging, and planning changes.

When you write clever one-liners or hyper-abstracted wrappers to save 5 minutes of typing, you trade seconds of writing time for hours of reading time.

Core principles:

1. Choose explicit over clever - Write full if/else instead of nested ternaries
2. Name for context - Use daysSinceLastLogin not d
3. Keep functions focused - One clear job per function
4. Comment the why, not the what - Code shows what, comments explain why

Benefits of optimizing for readability:

• Onboarding is faster
• Bugs are easier to find
• Changes are safer
• Code reviews are quicker
• Refactoring is easier
• Knowledge transfer works better

Example: A clear if-statement takes 2 seconds to understand. A nested ternary takes 30 seconds of squinting.

Key quote: "Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute." — Abelson & Sussman