A new article published in Methods in Ecology in Evolution (MEE) makes a case for biologists to adopt a practice of writing clean code. This perspective piece by Professor Christopher Lortie at York University and Dr. Alessandro Filazzola, ApexRMS Data Scientist, details the incentives to write clean code, the basics when crafting scripts, and the implications for the typical computational biologist. The article explains three themes that are relevant for improving the readability of code: communication, formatting, and abstraction. It provides a table of best practices for formatting code and dives into the suite of tools available to help scientists produce clean code. Read the corresponding Methods Blog post to learn more about the authors and their motivations to promote clean code within the biological sciences.