Can Business People Read Your Code?

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post on how I refactored tests in Ruby to follow the "Data Generated Specs" pattern, making it easy to add specs and read the input and expected output values for the different cases.

The surprising effect for that is being able to review the test cases with a non-technical client, and then the client liking the format so much and requesting a copy of the specs.

I had another similar incident last week that also pleasantly surprised me.

At one point, the client asked me about a detail in the business calculation to verify that I am handling it correctly, and I indicated that I followed the math formula she gave me. Then, to confirm, I had the client come over and look at my implementation in Ruby (changed a bit for IP protection):

copay = benefit.includes_deductible? ? (value - deductible) : value
12*rate + deductible + copay

I made sure to explain the turnery operator while going over the implementation, and the client seemed to get it then cheerfully exclaim: "Great! Looks like you got it exactly the way I wrote it."

I was very happy to hear that, and I wondered if this only became possible because I followed good clean code software development techniques such as TDD and refactoring. I mean, had I not refactored my code to extract the essence of the calculation in one tiny method with less than 5 lines of code, I would have probably confused the client by showing her too much code.

How cleanly is your code written on average? Can business people read your code?