Software Development is not all about learning a programming language and designing some sort of software. You’re supposed to write good and clean software as a software developer. Clean code does not just function, but it’s also testable, modular, maintainable, easy to comprehend and not difficult to change. It’s a frequent thing in software development that no developer wishes to proceed with a project with messy code; it becomes a nightmare most times. Most developers avoid writing clean code because they have a time limit and want to satisfy the increasing customer demands. Therefore, they rush the development process. They usually end up slowing the process—something which generates faults and bugs, delaying the whole process since the bugs require fixing.
The cleaner your code is, the more chances you stand of reusing it. As a programmer, you become more efficient and productive whenever you write clean code. Sloopy code administers a technical debt in your project. As technical debt can be helpful in the context, uncontrolled technical debt deteriorates code quality and makes adding features virtually impossible. This drives a rise in customer complaints, and in the end, they’ll look for better developers who will provide better code.
As Martin Fowler said, any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced programmer, you should always try to be that programmer that sticks to delivering clean code. Remember that it’s your responsibility to write quality code understood by fellow developers and customers. Surprisingly, most developers do not possess the art of writing clean code. Here are twelve steps that will aid you and your developing team write better and clear code.
- Utilise Source Control
Whether writing a small-scale application or collaborating on a large software project, source control is essential in developing clean code. Using source control helps you track and manage all the changes made to code. Systems such as Source Control Management offer a history of the development process and help fix issues when integrating contributions from various sources. Source control utilisation ensures you can collaborate on code with your teammates and quickly troubleshoot bugs by identifying who made the changes and what changes they were. Without source control, you can’t know what your teammates worked on, and there is limited collaboration. Source control helps you streamline the development process and offers a consolidated source for your code. With source control, your team can merge code without conflicts and edit the shared code without unconsciously overwriting each other’s work. Some of the best source control systems include Git, Mercurial, Darcs, plus Azure DevOps.
Action tip: Create a source control system account where you upload all your code. It could be Git, Darcs or Azure DevOps depending on what fits your needs. This system will act as the primary and single source of your code, and it will be accessed by any developer on the same project as you.
- Fix Bugs Before Moving on to New Code
When you encounter a bug in your code the first time you try to run it, you must fix it as soon as possible because the code is usually still fresh in your brain. Early bug fixing sets an attitude for the development team about how committed you’re to delivering quality code: the more bugs, the more complex the repair. Bugs gravitate toward multiplying, meaning they accumulate if they are not fixed as they surface. And, when your code has numerous bugs, it’s hard to track the root cause of the problem and it consumes a lot of time and money. Also, a bug-prone code puts your reputation at risk. Presenting your code to customers without verifying whether it has bugs puts your career at stake. Most of your customers may opt for other developers offering better code. Fixing bugs as they surface helps you write better and cleaner code because the only bugs you’ll ever have to settle are the ones you see.
Action tip: Capturing bugs, searching logs and doing away with bugs consumes time. Therefore, it’s indispensable to deploy software that can track bugs and assist you in repairing them before it’s too late.
Software such as Airbrake can be of great assistance capable of monitoring full-stack traces, deploying tracking, and logging. Also, Airbrake offers a dashboard to track your expectations, implying that bugs are fixed within seconds.
- Put in Place Testers
Suppose your team has yet to have committed testers for every two or three developers. In that case, the chances are that you’re wasting resources (money and time) or shipping buggy code to your customers. To have better code and employ testers, many employers think that testers are very expensive. They’re wrong; testers usually are cheaper than programmers because they do a small amount of testing a day and can not execute their duties without developers. After all, developers build code that testers assess. The goal of testers is to minimise the risks associated with code behaviour in a specific environment. Also, testers suppress and prevent as many faults and difficult bugs as possible through careful inspection. Testing code is crucial since it discovers bugs before code is delivered to the client, something which guarantees the quality of the software. Also, testers will teach you how to develop better code because they’ll take you through the faults that you put in the code and show you various ways to solve problems.
Action tip: Hire a tester who can plan the testing and quality assurance processes, employ test-oriented software and implement automated tests whenever possible.
- Execute Unit Tests
Unit testing is an approach by which individual units of source code-associated control data, usage procedures and operating procedures are tested to determine their suitability for utilisation. Unit tests are usually automated tests written and carried out by you and your team. They guarantee that a piece of the software, customarily known as a unit meets its design and behaves as expected. Unit testing helps you write better code because it aims to separate each part of the software and determine whether the individual pieces are accurate. Also, unit testing identifies faults early in the development process. This involves bugs in your implementation and flaws in the unit’s description. Writing unit tests is essential in the development process since it makes your code cleaner, more flexible and maintainable. Deploying changes to the code and minimising bugs becomes much more accessible. When code is designed using a test-driven approach, requirements are turned into specific test cases. The software is improved to pass new tests. Utilising unit tests will increase the quality of your work to the point that your teammates will consult with you.
Action tip: Initialise a small piece of code you wish to test (usually known as System Under Test), then apply a stimulus to the system under test generally by calling a method on it and finally observe the resulting behaviour.
- Use Descriptive or Explanatory Names
When coding, you’ll write many names for functions, classes, variables, modules and directories but ensure that these names are meaningful to the client and fellow developers. Using sophisticated or unclear names for functions and classes significantly complicates the application logic for any programmer who tries to comprehend your code. Unreadable names for classes affect you, too. With time, you won’t be able to recall what the unclear names meant in the first place. Make it a routine to write clear and understandable names in your code. Regardless of what name you introduce in your code, make sure it meets these three purposes…what it does, why it exists and how it is used. When you use clear and meaningful names, fellow developers and clients won’t have to go through the whole code to figure out what a function does or what a class represents and why the variable exists. Meaningful names make your code clearer and easier to read by clients. Also, it minimises the time spent when reviewing code. Writing descriptive names is time-consuming, but when you start writing them, it becomes intuitive and saves time in terms of maintenance, readability and collaboration resulting in clean code.
Action tip: When declaring variables, classes or functions, try as much you can to name them in an approach that clearly states their purposes. That’s to say, plainly state what the name does, why it exists and how it is used. Choose a name that specifies what is being measured and the unit of that measurement.
- Have a Bug Database
You’ll ship low-quality code when writing code, even on a team of one, without an organised data or bug tracking system that outlines all known bugs. Don’t be in the bracket of programmers who think they can hold and remember the bug list in their heads. You’ll barely remember a bug the following day, and because you can’t remember any bug. Acquire a bug database to ensure that all the buys in code are identified and fixed. The database can track issues and examines the efforts taken by you and your team to resolve a bug. Bug tracking systems offer better communication via chat interfaces and e-mail notifications. This minimises the communication gap between the group and notifies the right person to test and deal with bugs on time. Bug databases can be confusing and straightforward, depending on the environment.
A functional bug-tracking system must include the following data for every bug;
- Who it’s assigned to,
- Whether the bug is fixed or not,
- Expected behaviour,
- Complete the steps to reproduce the bug
- Observed buggy behaviour.
By utilising a bug-tracking system, you’ll write better and cleaner code effortlessly. A bug database is a mandatory component of a professional software development infrastructure. Consistent use of a bug database is regarded as one of the hallmarks of a good software team.
Action tip: Create a bug tracker application that will enable you to log a new bug from the frontend. The application must use a custom module that you create with the module builder. Then, create a hierarchical structure for the content items to represent projects and bugs.
- Always Refactor Your Code
Refactoring refers to restructuring code without changing or adding to its external behaviour and functionality. The changes in the existing source code preserve the software’s behaviour and functionality because the changes are too small so they are unlikely to introduce new errors. Refactoring is part of the coding process. Avoiding refactoring is the easiest way to end up with messy and unmaintainable code. Refactoring removes the technical debt, improves code design, and makes your code cleaner and easier to comprehend. You get rid of irrelevant variables, redundant code, lengthy methods, and loops through refactoring. As you refactor code, it becomes easier to identify bugs since you understand the entire structure of the code, making your code cleaner. When code is cleaner and more understandable, adding features and debugging the code is more accessible. The most convenient time to refactor your code is before attaching any updates and new features to existing code. Backtracking and cleaning up the code before attaching new updates enhances the quality of the code and makes it easier for other developers to improve the original code.
Action tip: one of the most widely utilised approaches for refactoring code is Refactoring by Abstraction. This approach is primarily used when there is a large amount of refactoring. Abstraction requires hierarchy, class inheritance and extraction. The main objective of abstraction is to minimise unnecessary replications in code.
- Write Good Comments and Avoid Bad Comments
When you’re introduced to comments, you’re encouraged to comment as frequently as possible. Comments describe why a piece of code exists instead of what the code does. When code is correctly written, it should be self-evident as to what it does—the comment is supposed to throw light on the intention behind who it was written. Good comments are good for warnings, that’s to say, “Removing this will break A, B and C”, but for the most part, comments should uncover things that can’t be instantly reaped from the code. Good comments improve readability, offer context as to what the code is trying to do, and help you recall the part of the code that should be refactored.
Much as writing comments is crucial in writing clean code, avoid writing bad or unnecessary comments. If the situation doesn’t call for comments, then don’t comment because comments consume time and don’t impact runtime behaviour. Don’t write comments to have more lines of your code or to document your code. Write comments when it makes sense to write them, that’s to say, to intercept another developer from writing the same mistake. In general, commenting helps write come up with clean code and enables you to understand your code in the future.
Action tip: utilise code annotations or tags. Various programming languages define specifications for commenting. JavaScript uses the JSDoc well as Java uses Javadoc. Many documentation generation tools support these code commenting systems.
- Write Readable Code
Many developers, especially beginners, make a mistake when coding or writing everything on a single line and rarely prove proper whitespace, line breaks or indentation in their code. Your code will get messy and hard to maintain when you make the same mistake. The chances are that other developers will come in contact with your code and will have to work with it. It will waste their time because they have to try to read and comprehend the messy code. Therefore, pay attention to the formatting style of your code. The coding and formatting style usually affects the maintainability of your code. But, with a suitable formatting style, you save time and energy when making code changes. Ensure that your code has a genuine indentation, line breaks and space to make it readable and clean for your clients and fellow developers.
Action tip: Make sure you consistently indent your code while writing. Use code grouping because some tasks require a few lines of code, and it is better to keep these tasks within separate blocks of code with some spaces between them.
- Use The Single Responsibility Principle
The single responsibility principle states that every module, class or function should have one responsibility and a single purpose. Therefore, when there is a change in that task, that class should only change. Functions, classes and methods are an excellent way to assemble code in any programming language. Therefore, when writing code, see it through that you write a function that communicates its purpose. Many beginners make the mistake of writing a function that handles almost everything and performs many tasks. This makes your code more confusing for other developers and generates problems when fixing bugs. Keep in mind that writing a function should be small and should only perform one task and should do it well. When code has multiple classes, each class follows this principle, meaning that code will become more maintainable and easier to understand. Also, with the single responsibility principle in place, it’s easy for new developers to add updates, and testing and writing cases are more uncomplicated.
Action tip: as the name suggests, each module or function should have one purpose and responsibility. Therefore, write classes, functions, or methods with only one job and only one reason to change. You don’t want objects that have many responsibilities and unassociated behaviour.
- Select the Right Architecture
Without design and requirements, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file. There are various models and architectures that you can use to create your projects. Make sure you select the right one and not the best one. Choosing the right architecture creates a solid foundation for the project and increases the performance of the software. The right architecture enables better code maintainability since the code structure is known and visible, making it easier to locate bugs and anomalies. Also, a proper architecture provides you with an approach to organise code to encapsulate the business logic. Still, it keeps it separate from the delivery mechanism.
Action tip: Utilise the Model-View-Controller (MVC) because it helps you keep code organised and designed to minimise maintenance efforts.
- Delete Unnecessary Code
This is a habit that most programmers struggle with from time to time. What usually happens is that you wish to optimise a chunk of code, so you comment it out and make a rewrite just below it. Though it works, you keep the old code there just in case. Gradually, you accumulate a lot of commented-out blocks of code that are irrelevant yet mess up your source files. Useless code slows down adding new features to the code and may directly impact it. Be sure to think it through before deleting this unwanted code. When you’re working on a new project, ensure that you can differentiate between working code and unnecessary code because unused code creates more confusion in the code. Also, maintenance becomes a burden; by conserving redundant code, merging changes in the main branch gets more challenging because there is more code to work through.
Action tip: The quickest way to find unwanted code is to use a good IDE. Delete unused code and unneeded files. In the case of an unnecessary class, an inline class or collapse hierarchy can be applied if a subclass or superclass is used.
Conclusion
Good code is easy to maintain, add features quickly and fix bugs on it well, as lousy code is a punishment to a developer. When writing clean code, ask yourself these questions: will this be easy to delete when I don’t need it or will other developers be able to read this code? People will not understand your code if it’s deeply nested, dependent on various state levels and lines of code throughout the code. Whether beginner or professional, your duty is to write and build clean code as a developer. Steps such as using the single responsibility principle, having a bug database, using meaning names or refactoring can help you structure and write clean code
