When I made the transition from hobbyist to professional programmer, I discovered it isn’t enough for my code to work; it also has to be easy to maintain. At first, I wasn’t sure how to make it happen. Then, when I read Robert Martin’s book *Clean Code*, I discovered good code is written with people in mind, follows a consistent format, has short functions, uses meaningful names, and avoids comments. Applying these principles has dramatically improved my code and can change your life as well.