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Cognitive Load

Status: ⏳ PENDING

The inverse of this chapter's rules — practices to recognize and avoid. Each will get a junior-level definition, a real example of the harm it causes, and the clean alternative.

Anti-Patterns to Cover

  • Deep nesting (5+ levels of if/for) instead of early returns
  • Long parameter lists (8+ positional args)
  • "Clever" one-liners that replace 3 clear lines
  • Acronym-soup names that require domain knowledge to decode
  • Hidden control flow — exceptions for normal cases, side effects in getters
  • Functions exceeding a screen height (no chunking)
  • Boolean parameters that flip behavior (process(data, true, false, true))
  • Mixed abstraction levels in one function (high-level orchestration next to bit-shifting)

See the chapter README for the positive rules.