Using clean code principles for better code

Good Housekeeping

© Lead Image © donatas1205, 123RF.com

© Lead Image © donatas1205, 123RF.com

Article from Issue 264/2022
Author(s):

Clean code principles can improve the readability of your source code, making life easier for both you and your users.

Clean code is a set of rules and procedures that make it easier to read and understand source code regardless of the programming language used. Many clean code strategies fit all languages, but some more far-reaching strategies only prove useful in the object-oriented world. The clean code concept is not new or revolutionary. Back in 2008, Robert C. Martin described the procedures in his book, Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship [1].

With today's highly complex IT applications, ensuring that source code has a clean structure has becoming increasingly important. The clean code concept has evolved in recent years, and the procedures described in Martin's book have been expanded. To get you started writing cleaner code, I'll describe some of the core ideas and rules of clean code.

The Scout's Rule

"Always leave code cleaner than you found it." If you take this rule to heart, a project's source code will get better and better over time. You don't need to be afraid of breaking something, because the previous version can always be restored thanks to the version management (i.e., Git). Modern IDEs also provide many tools for reengineering code. Renaming classes or methods doesn't pose so much of a risk anymore.

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