Write Idiomatic Code

Idiomatic refers to the most common way to write something in a language. Writing idiomatic code means following the conventions of the language, and solving problems the way they are meant to be solved in that language, not by porting programming patterns from other languages.

Idioms vary widely across languages.

Learning and internalizing the idioms of a language greatly improves your reading abilities. You are able to focus on understanding what the code does instead of wondering why the code is written in an awkward way.

Projects that use idiomatic code benefit from:

• Higher maintainability - Idiomatic code is clear, maintainable, and bug-free
• Faster code reading & Lower cognitive load - People are no longer stopping at every line, trying to figure out what it does, while struggling to keep in mind what came before
• Faster debugging - It's easier to spot bugs in idiomatic code