the-standup — episode

Don't Clean Code! with Creator of HTMX

#009 · May 27, 2025

Don't Clean Code! with Creator of HTMX
Twitch https://twitch.tv/ThePrimeagen Discord https://discord.gg/ThePrimeagen ☕ ssh terminal.shop 📘 Carson’s book: https://hypermedia.systems 🧠 Grug Brained Dev: https://grugbrain.dev Timestamps: 0:00 Intro & chaos before the call 1:45 Meet Carson Gross (HTMX creator & professor) 3:29 What is "Coding Dirty"? 5:12 Why Carson hates small methods 7:24 The myth of clean code and method size 10:06 What the data actually says about long functions 13:11 Why abstraction is not free 15:06 Long vs short functions: maintainability & changeability 18:00 Why small functions make debugging harder 21:34 Beautiful at any size: the case for fat functions 24:19 The myth of good naming solving complexity 26:55 TDD, unit tests, and when they help vs hurt 35:39 End-to-end testing: the good, the bad, the bloated 43:23 Meme culture, cringe, and developer humor