Published on: 16-11-2023
The goal of software engineering practices is to create, at the same time, functional code, as well as maintainable and easily-understandable code. You don't really want a developer who replaces you on a project to send some nasty thoughts your way because of the smelly code you left behind, do you? In this article we outline some best practices to help you save time and headaches by creating higher quality software.
1. Put emphasis on code readability
Remember the critical rule about coding - to write code that is readable, understandable, consistent and modular. This helps you and your team reduce time and effort in the future when you need to maintain and extend your code. Poor readability leads to bugs and instability. If you don't follow this principle, you may find yourself spending more time unscrambling the code than fixing the issue or expanding the code functionality.
Always remember that future-proofing your code is more important than finishing quickly. You will thank yourself when you return to the same section of code months down the line after you already forgot exactly what those 300 lines of code were designed to do.
2. Make time for code refactoring
Nobody likes code refactoring because it takes time and doesn't add anything new to the code. You should still make time for it for its indisputable benefits.
By assigning time for code refactoring, your code becomes:
- easier to understand,
- faster to maintain,
- more bug-free.
3. Keep coding principles in mind - KISS, YAGNI, DRY
KISS (the military acronym, not the rock band) stands for 'Keep it simple, silly'. Replace with 'stupid' at the end, if you prefer. The core idea is to write 'simple' code, meaning to keep it concise and avoid unnecessary engineering work. The main benefit is that your code has high maintainability and rapid debugging.
YAGNI means 'You aren't gonna need it'. It's sometimes better if you write the code yourself, rather than use general purpose code that is more complex than you would ever need for your project. Still, keep in mind that owning more code means more work for you. You need to keep a good balance between the volume of your code vs the volume of 3rd party code.
DRY is short for 'Don't repeat yourself'. Use abstractions and group code into functions to reduce repetition and redundancies in your code. Generally, having less code is better, especially when certain code functionality is used in multiple places. If you reuse a functionality via calling a single function, then debugging it is faster, compared to debugging its functionality several times which can generate unintentional bugs.
Why choose to work with Apidemia for writing work-for-hire software?
- Apidemia is one of the few companies that are official commercial vendors for Laminas.
- Our projects are built for the long term, 10-15-20 years, without fundamental changes.
- We keep the stack updated with regular updates that take advantage of newer packages.
- We have a team of highly experienced software engineers, business developers, testers and managers. Most of our developers are ZCE (Zend Certified Engineers) and are familiar with the most efficient design architecture and coding practices