[jaekwon]

there's an art to writing readable and reusable code, but you have to start by understanding the problem.

when you really understand the problem, the problem and surrounding use-cases become obvious. when this happens, writing readable code becomes trivial, as long as you understand what tools you need to use to solve it.

sometimes the right tool is a library, sometimes it's adapting existing code, and sometimes it's a special language construct like Python metaclasses.

whatever your problem, try to describe it and the solution in english at a high level. then, how can you best fit your solution into the mental framework that you just created?

as for reusable code, just be aware of leaky abstractions and complexity. often times i see libraries that introduce more complexity into a program than needed, sometimes because the solution doesn't really fit into a module. often times the solution is another language, like jQuery or Haml.

anyways.