You might be tired of reading on this topic hundredth times. But, It is essential to understand the value of good code. When a developer writes clean code, it produces gorgeous software or an app that works great and is easy to maintain. But, on the other hand, if the developer chooses to ignore the clean code practice, it might have a gorgeous design, but I can bet bugs start popping from everywhere and maintenance become a nightmare.
What is the clean code?
Clean code is simple to read, uncomplicated to understand, and effortless to maintain for other colleagues. It is easy to write the code which the machine or you will understand, but it can be challenging in the future.
It is essential that others can understand your code. That’s the basic idea behind clean code. You don’t write code for a machine to understand, and you don’t write for yourself; you write for other developers. People in your team or organization need to read your code and change your code to fix bugs or add new features.
- Clean code is expressive
It means that other developers can look at a piece of code and know its purpose. The class names, the structure — it should all make sense. Furthermore, good code is self-documented code. In other words, the code shouldn’t require pages and pages of documentation to explain it.
Of course, they may not know all, but you already know what that part of the code is about- the names of the classes, the structure must be expressive. - Clean code is simple
To prevent code from turning into some giant labyrinth of functions and classes. For Beginners, the KISS principle, or Keep It Simple Stupid — the system works best. Good code design should be on simplicity, not complexity.
Another rule is a single responsibility. Each class or function should only be responsible for one thing. For example, if you create an e-commerce marketplace, there should be one class for gathering customer data, one class for getting credit card information, etc. If a class is doing many things, it’s going to get complicated fast. - Clean code is also maintainable
Good luck upgrading it, checking it, and adding new features down the line, if you don’t take the time to write good code. Poorly written code is frustrating and difficult to modify without causing more bugs later.
However, good code is the opposite because it’s expressive and precise. It’s easy to update and repair as time goes by for the original creator and others.
Why developers don’t do it?
But all this logically makes sense, right? It looks incredible on paper, but plenty of developers out there don’t do it in reality. Why not? To begin with, some of them will not have the knowledge base. Take a junior developer, for example. They would never learn how to do it for themselves if they’ve just worked on small projects or with more senior developers who aren’t inspired to write clean code.
Lack of motivation is another challenge. Say you are working for a few bucks an hour with some developer from an outsourcing platform. That person will lack the motivation to do an excellent job for a few dollars an hour. The client gets the website at in low price, but give it a few months, and they’ll start seeing bugs.
A final impediment is the lack of time. Let’s face it; it takes a lot less time to write poor code because it’s not as top-heavy. On the other hand, it takes time and careful thinking to prepare for a clean code. It is simpler to jump straight in and write without worrying about the potential customer, other developers, or the overall design. Another reason for poorly written code can be tight deadlines. That’s why it’s crucial to provide generous deadlines for managers so that the development team can take the time to build a very usable code.
Why it is important?
As we established before, poorly written code might be quicker in the short term, but in a few months, you’ll be happier to have invested in clean code. In addition, when you have taken the time and effort to build your code, it will be much easier to add new features, fix bugs, and work with other developers.
How to do it?
Here at Arc10, we always have someone else check our code before pushing the code in version control. On-going team dialogue helps us quickly address bugs, improve our skills, and share new ideas.
We have something called a Pull Request that everybody does–this is something that all the developers do in the market. You make a Pull request to see the difference between the new and the old code before modifications into the code itself. Then, all the other developers in your team check the code and give feedback. The code review helps the developers to enhance their skills and utilize the knowledge of all the team members when you have junior developers.
Finally, we’re constantly refactoring. We continually revisit our code overtime to find ways of enhancing it, much like an author who is never happy with their novel.