Ygtjki

Yes, it's an acceptable byproduct, and the justification is that it is now structured such that you don't have to read most of the code most of the time. Instead of reading a 30-line function every single time you are making a change, you are reading a 5-line function to get the overall flow, and maybe a couple of the helper functions if your change touches that area. If your new "extra" class is called EmailValidator and you know your problem isn't with email validation, you can skip reading it altogether.

It's also easier to reuse smaller pieces, which tends to reduce your line count for your overall program. An EmailValidator can be used all over the place. Some lines of code that do email validation but are scrunched together with database access code can't be reused.

Bill Gates was famously attributed as saying, "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight."

I humbly agree with this sentiment. This is to not say that a program should strive for more or less lines of code, but that this isn't ultimately what counts to create a functioning and working program. It helps to remember that ultimately the reason behind adding extra lines of code is that it is theoretically more readable that way.

Disagreements can be had on whether a specific change is more or less readable, but I don't think you'd be wrong to make a change to your program because you think by doing so you're making it more readable. For instance making an isEmailValid could be thought to be superfluous and unnecessary, especially if it is being called exactly once by the class which defines it. However I would much rather see an isEmailValid in a condition than a string of ANDed conditions whereby I must determine what each individual condition checks and why it is being checked.

Where you get into trouble is when you create a isEmailValid method which has side effects or checks things other than the e-mail, because this is worse than simply writing it all out. It is worse because it is misleading and I may miss a bug because of it.

Though clearly you're not doing that in this case, so I would encourage you to continue as you're doing. You should always ask yourself if by making the change, it is easier to read, and if that is your case, then do it!

so some developers/managers see value in writing less code to get things done so that we have less code to maintain

This is a matter of losing sight on the actual goal.

What matters is lowering hours spent on development. That is measured in time (or equivalent effort), not in lines of code.

This is like saying that car manufacturers should build their cars with less screws, because it takes a non-zero amount of time to put each screw in. While that is pedantically correct, a car's market value is not defined by how many screws it does or doesn't have. Above all else, a car needs to be performant, safe, and easy to maintain.

The rest of the answer are examples of how clean code can lead to time gains.

Logging

Take an application (A) which has no logging. Now create application B, which is the same application A but with logging. B will always have more lines of code, and thus you need to write more code.

But a lot of time will sink into investigating issues and bugs, and figuring out what went wrong.

For application A, developers will be stuck reading the code, and having to continually reproduce the problem and step through the code to find the source of the issue. This means that the developer has to test from the beginning of the execution to the end, in every used layer, and needs to observe every used piece of logic.

Maybe he is lucky to find it immediately, but maybe the answer is going to be in the last place he thinks of looking.

For application B, assuming perfect logging, a developer observes the logs, can immediately identify the faulty component, and now knows where to look.

This can be a matter of minutes, hours or days saved; depending on the size and complexity of the codebase.

Regressions

Take application A, which is not DRY-friendly at all.

Take application B, which is DRY, but ended up needing more lines because of the additional abstractions.

A change request is filed, which requires a change to the logic.

For application B, the developer changes the (unique, shared) logic according to the change request.

For application A, the developer has to change all instances of this logic where he remembers it being used.

• If he manages to remember all instances, he'll still have to implement the same change several times.


• If he does not manage to remember all instances, you're now dealing with an inconsistent codebase that contradicts itself. If the developer forgot a rarely used piece of code, this bug may not become apparent to the end users until well into the future. At that time, are the end users going to identify what the source of the issue is? Even if so, the developer may not remember what the change entailed, and will have to figure out how to change this forgotten piece of logic. Maybe the developer doesn't even work at the company by then, and then someone else now has to figure it all out from scratch.

This can lead to enormous time wastage. Not just in development, but in hunting and finding the bug. The application can start behaving erratically in a way that developers cannot easily comprehend. And that will lead to lengthy debugging sessions.

Developer interchangeability

Developer A created application A. The code is not clean nor readable, but it works like a charm and has been running in production. Unsurprisingly, there is no documentation either.

Developer A is absent for a month due to holidays. An emergency change request is filed. It can't wait another three weeks for Dev A to return.

Developer B has to execute this change. He now needs to read the entire codebase, understand how everything works, why it works, and what it tries to accomplish. This takes ages, but let's say he can do it in three weeks' time.

At the same time, application B (which dev B created) has an emergency. Dev B is occupied, but Dev C is available, even though he doesn't know the codebase. What do we do?

• If we keep B working on A, and put C to work on B, then we have two developers who don't know what they're doing, and the work is bering performed suboptimally.


• If we pull B away from A and have him do B, and we now put C on A, then all of developer B's work (or a significant portion of it) may end up being discarded. This is potentially days/weeks of effort wasted.

Dev A comes back from his holiday, and sees that B did not understand the code, and thus implemented it badly. It's not B's fault, because he used all available resources, the source code just wasn't adequately readable. Does A now have to spend time fixing the readability of the code?

All of these problems, and many more, end up wasting time. Yes, in the short term, clean code requires more effort now, but it will end up paying dividends in the future when inevitable bugs/changes need to be addressed.

Management needs to understand that a short task now will save you several long tasks in the future. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

If so, what are some arguments I can use to justify the fact that more LOC have been written?

My goto explanation is asking management what they would prefer: an application with a 100KLOC codebase that can be developed in three months, or a 50KLOC codebase that can be developed in six months.

They will obviously pick the shorter development time, because management doesn't care about KLOC. Managers who focus on KLOC are micromanaging while being uninformed about what they're trying to manage.

Considering the fact that the "is email valid" condition you currently have would accept the very much invalid email address "@", I think you have every reason to abstract out an EmailValidator class. Even better, use a good, well-tested library to validate email addresses.

Lines of code as a metric is meaningless. The important questions in software engineering are not:

• Do you have too much code?


• Do you have too little code?

The important questions are:

• Is the application as a whole designed correctly?


• Is the code implemented correctly?


• Is the code maintainable?


• Is the code testable?


• Is the code adequately tested?

I've never given a thought to LoC when writing code for any purpose but Code Golf. I have asked myself "Could I write this more succinctly?", but for purposes of readability, maintainability, and efficiency, not simply length.

Sure, maybe I could use a long chain of boolean operations instead of a utility method, but should I?

Your question actually makes me think back on some long chains of booleans I've written and realize I probably should have written one or more utility method(s) instead.

On one level, they are right - less code is better.
Another answer quoted Gate, I prefer:

“If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.”
– Edsger Dijkstra

“When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.”
– Richard Pattis

The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren’t there. - Gordon Bell

In short, the less code you have, the less can go wrong. If something isn't necessary, then cut it.
If there is over-complicated code, then simplify it until the actual functional elements are all that remain.

What is important here, is that these all refer to functionality, and only having the minimum required to do it. It doesn't say anything about how that is expressed.

What what you are doing by attempting to have clean code isn't against the above. You are adding to your LOC but not adding unused functionality.

The end goal is to have readable code but no superfluous extras. The two principles should not act against each other.

A metaphor would be building a car. The functional part of the code is the chassis, engine, wheels... what makes the car run. How you break that up is more like the upholstery, seats and so on, it makes it easier to handle.
You want your mechanics as simple as possible while still performing their job, to minimise the chance of things going wrong, but that doesn't prevent you from having nice seats.

There's lots of wisdom in the existing answers, but I'd like to add in one more factor: the language.

Some languages take more code than others to get the same effect.  In particular, while Java (which I suspect is the language in the question) is extremely well-known and generally very solid and clear and straightforward, some more modern languages are much more concise and expressive.

For example, in Java it could easily take 50 lines to write a new class with three properties, each with a getter and setter, and one or more constructors — while you can accomplish exactly the same in a single line of Kotlin* or Scala.  (Even greater saving if you also wanted suitable equals(), hashCode(), and toString() methods.)

The result is that in Java, the extra work means you're more likely to reuse a general object that doesn't really fit, to squeeze properties into existing objects, or to pass a bunch of ‘bare’ properties around individually; while in a concise, expressive language, you're more likely to write better code.

(This highlights the difference between the ‘surface’ complexity of the code, and the complexity of the ideas/models/processing it implements.  Lines of code isn't a bad measure of the first, but has much less to do with the second.)

So the ‘cost’ of doing things right depends on the language.  Perhaps one sign of a good language is one that doesn't make you choose between doing things well, and doing them simply!

(* This isn't really the place for a plug, but Kotlin is well worth a look IMHO.)

I'd point out there is nothing inherently wrong with this:

if(contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@')

At least assuming it's used this one time.

I could have problems with this very easily:

private Boolean isEmailValid(String email)
 return contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@');

A few things I'd watch for:

1. Why is it private? It looks like a potentially useful stub. Is it useful enough to be a private method and no chance of it being used more widely?


2. I wouldn't name the method IsValidEmail personally, possibly ContainsAtSign or LooksVaguelyLikeEmailAddress because it does almost no real validation, which is maybe good, maybe not what is exected.


3. Is it being used more than once?

If it is being used once, is simple to parse, and takes less than one line I would second guess the decision. It probably isn't something I'd call out if it wasn't a particular problem from a team.

On the other hand I have seen methods do something like this:

if (contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@')) ... 
else if (contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@') && contact.email.contains("@mydomain.com")) //headquarters email 
else if (contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@') && (contact.email.contains("@news.mydomain.com") || contact.email.contains("@design.mydomain.com") ) //internal contract teams 

That example is obviously not DRY.

Or even just that last statement can give another example:

if (contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@') && (contact.email.contains("@news.mydomain.com") || contact.email.contains("@design.mydomain.com") )

The goal should be to make the code more readable:

if (LooksSortaLikeAnEmail(contact.Email)) ... 
else if (LooksLikeFromHeadquarters(contact.Email)) ... 
else if (LooksLikeInternalEmail(contact.Email)) ... 

Another scenario:

You might have a method like:

public void SaveContact(Contact contact)
 if (contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@'))
 
 contacts.Add(contact);
 contacts.Save();
 

If this fits your business logic and isn't reused there is not a problem here.

But when someone asks "Why is '@' saved, because that's not right!" and you decide to add actual validation of some sort, then extract it!

You'll be glad you did when you also need to account for the presidents second email account Pr3$sid3nt@h0m3!@mydomain.com and decide to just go all out and try and support RFC 2822.

On readability:

// If there is an email property and it contains an @ sign then process
if (contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@'))

If your code is this clear, you don't need comments here. In fact, you don't need comments to say what the code is doing most the time, but rather why it's doing it:

// The UI passes '@' by default, the DBA's made this column non-nullable but 
// marketing is currently more concerned with other fields and '@' default is OK
if (contact.email != null && contact.email.contains('@'))

Whether the comments above an if statement or inside a tiny method is to me, pedantic. I might even argue the opposite of useful with good comments inside another method because now you would have to navigate to another method to see how and why it does what it does.

In summary: Don't measure these things; Focus on the principles that the text was built from (DRY, SOLID, KISS).

// A valid class that does nothing
public class Nothing 

Let's assume that you are working with class Contact currently. The fact that you are writing another method for validation of email address is evidence of the fact that the class Contact is not handling a single responsibility.

It is also handling some email responsibility, which ideally, should be its own class.

Further proof that your code is a fusion of Contact and Email class is that you will not be able to test email validation code easily. It will require a lot of maneuverings to reach email validation code in a big method with the right values. See the method viz below.

private void LargeMethod() 
 //A lot of code which modifies a lot of values. You do all sorts of tricks here.
 //Code.
 //Code..
 //Code...

 //Email validation code becoming very difficult to test as it will be difficult to ensure 
 //that you have the right data till you reach here in the method
 ValidateEmail();

 //Another whole lot of code that modifies all sorts of values.
 //Extra work to preserve the result of ValidateEmail() for your asserts later.

On the other hand, if you had a separate Email class with a method for email validation, then to unit test your validation code you would just make one simple call to Email.Validation() with your test data.

_{Bonus Content: MFeather's talk about the deep synergy between testability and good design.}