XII. No focus on clean code

That’s why ditrydozen is here

You have finally reached chapter 12th of the ditrydozen list of the 12 most dirty and common code mistakes programmers tend to make over and over again.

All of the mistakes described on this website stem from one and only one underlying cause, which is:

No focus on clean code

Problem Statement

If programmers don’t understand the potential pitfalls of bad coding standards then we’ll just keep seeing repeats of the same mistakes.

Of course, you always need to consider the context under which code was written. Perhaps some bad patterns were introduced with an intention to pay them off at later stage - we also know this as Technical Debt.

Furthermore, some of the ditrydozen mistakes are more severe than others. Likewise, certain code smells appear in code more often than others. At the end of the day, it’s a fine balance between speed of delivery vs code quality.

The best programmers in the field will constantly learn and improve their coding standards and patterns, which in turn will manifest itself in code quality. With time, their code quality and experience will improve and that in turn will feed into efficiency and speed of delivery.

Solution

Just keep an eye on these code smells. There are tools out there, such as ReSharper for C# or IntelliJ IDEA for Java, both from JetBrains.

For multi-language static code analysis you can try SonarQube or reference this List of tools for static code analysis.

Finally, clean and structured code is just one thing to bear in mind. Smelly code has the bad tendency of exposing your application to Cyberattacks which can potentially damage your career progression as well as your organisation. OWASP is a non-profit foundation which works on improving the security of software. I strongly suggest to explore it in addition to the ditrydozen resources.

Summary

Stay focused and abreast of new technologies, keep learning and improving your own standards, maybe even contribute to these with your own ideas and also share your knowledge with others.

Understand the implications your code can bring and above all focus on clean code, enjoy coding and stay safe :)

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