How To Write Better and Quality Code

Code quality is a critical aspect of software development, encompassing various practices and principles aimed at producing clean, maintainable, and efficient code. It involves structuring code for readability, eliminating redundancy through reusable components, documenting with comments, conducting thorough unit testing, and selecting appropriate development tools. Ensuring high code quality not only enhances the long-term maintainability and reliability of software but also leads to more efficient development processes and fewer errors, ultimately resulting in a superior user experience and a more successful project.

File Structure:

Folder structure, as much as possible make sure that your files are organized, do search the internet on how to structure your folder properly. This is important for maintainability because it's easier for developers to find, understand, and modify specific parts of the codebase. This reduces the time and effort required for making changes and debugging issues.

Reusable Codes

Make sure that if a function can be used elsewhere, make it a separate function. In short, be sure to create reusable methods/code. We don't want to bulk our code with too many duplicate codes. So, make sure to think about this one especially if you're refactoring your codes.

Comments

These comments are very important. Comments will not affect your codes; they will not affect the performance. These are like your code's personal tour guide, making your programming easier to grasp and more enjoyable for everyone involved. They offer insights into the purpose and inner workings of your code, ensuring that it's not just a bunch of cryptic symbols to decipher. Comments are also handy notes to your future self or your team, helping you avoid confusion, catch mistakes, and plan for future enhancements. So, think of comments as your friendly companions in the world of programming, guiding you through the coding journey with clarity and camaraderie.

NOTE: Write Good comments not bad comments. Bad comments are comments that are written everywhere that don't need to be written.

example:

// GOOD Comment
/**
     * Get a list of inactive services and extensions on an account for a given threshold period
     *
     * @param AccountCustomerMap $account The account we want to interrogate
     * @param string $period the strtotime period for the inactive threshold
     * @return array an array containing either the phone number or extension reg name
     */
    public static function inactiveItemsOnAccount(AccountCustomerMap $account, string $period = '-6 months'): array
    {
            // long methods of codes
    }



// BAD COMMENTS

/**
* This function will investigate the customer. -> this does not make sense. Give a little more description because the function name already has this explaniation.
*/
function investigateCustomer($customerID) {
   // get customer -> this comment should not be here, its its obviouse the code is getting the customer
   $customer = Customer::get($customerID);

    // ... methods
}

"It's better to reserve code comments for cases where you need to explain specific business logic/rules. At function level you should almost never need a comment, because the name and parameters should be descriptive enough themselves. If it needs further comments, its often a sign that the function needs a better name, or is trying to do too many things and should be split into smaller functions." taken from the comments bellow

Unit Tests

As much as possible especially if the project is just in its early stage, create tests because it's going to help in the long run. I promise. This also will be going to make the quality of the methods better. But if the project is not new, start creating tests for important functions, and test the minor functions later. I also suggest using typescript for type safety.

I advise that you find the test framework for the programming language your using, here are some of my suggestions.

JavaScript Popular tools for testing: Mocha, Jasmine, Unit JS, Jest

PHP popular tools for testing: PHPUnit

Other Suggestions: Vitest | Next Generation testing framework.

IDE is also important

If you are using VS Code, make sure to install the necessary extensions for development, and use the VS Code profile system so that you can set specific profiles for each dev environment.

For Me I recommend using the JetBrains product, the reason is you will have full support on the specific dev language you are using ex. PHPStorm for PHP development, WebStorm for web development, PyCharm for Python development, etc. It has features, that will definitely be going to help like refactoring, code duplicate checker, etc. If you have an Open-Source Project, you can apply for a free license here: Licenses for Open-Source Development (jetbrains.com)

AI Tools

Maximize your use of AI to streamline various tasks. Traditional search engines like Google Search are becoming less effective for code-related queries, while AI-powered options such as Chat GPT, Bard, and Edge Copilot by Microsoft Edge have emerged as the leading choices.

I hope this post helped you. Cheers 🍻 and have a nice day 🌞

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