How to Improve Code Quality?

How to Improve Code Quality?

Code quality is a metric that can classify code as good or bad. Depending on the context, it can have different definitions. Whether a code is good or bad is subjective. But in any context, code quality is an important metric to consider, and developers should find ways to improve the quality of their codes.

A single line of poorly written code can bring an enterprise to its knees, putting your projects at risk. It is why it’s crucial to increase the quality of your code. So, in this article, we’ll talk about code quality and different ways to improve code quality.

Why does it matter?

Companies that do not follow testing protocols and code quality standards make risky decisions that could lead to severe consequences. Due to the increase in cybercrime, a number of notable hacks have affected companies such as British Airways, Zoom, and many others.

Successful hacks can damage reputations, lead to data loss, and have difficult-to-recover knock-on effects on clients.

• Software applications burdened with technical debt or turned into obsolete systems because of the absence of maintenance are less well-known, but they are equally crucial.
• Software that’s not well-designed and constructed can cause significant problems for businesses. This type of software can be complicated to work with, expensive to maintain, and almost impossible to modify to meet the demands of new technology.
• It can result in costly revisions that you could have avoided because the most cost-effective time to fix an issue is when first discovered.
• Companies often need to pay more attention to the amount of money wasted when people need to remember the issue at the beginning of the code is re-introduced.

Practices to Ensure the Quality of Code

Here are some of the best practices used in the industry to help you ensure the quality of your written code. It will also reduce the risks associated with coding and make programmers’ lives easier. It includes:

• Adhere to Coding Standards
• Make Use of a Code Linter
• Implement Continuous Integration
• Leave Constructive Feedback
• Automated Testing

1. Adhere to Coding Standards

Coding conventions are a set of rules typically created by development teams. They contain the suggested etiquette and methods for a particular programming language. Teams may write conventions for the entire organization, or they may only write them for a specific project.

• Everyone is encouraged to write in the same manner by using coding conventions, making it easier for coworkers to understand your code.
• Conventions can also make locating the files and classes in a big project more accessible, making it simpler for programmers who need to become more familiar with the code to use them.
• You must follow many things under coding conventions, including naming conventions, spaces, operators, declarations, comments, indentation, file organization, and architectural patterns.

There are many advantages to implementing coding standards, including the following:

• Improved Efficiency
• Project failure risk is decreased
• Low Complexity
• Simple to Maintain
• Cost-Efficiency

2. Make Use of a Code Linter

You can avoid many problems by using a linter. A code linter is a tool that automatically verifies your code to see if it follows your project’s or company’s coding conventions. Linters will display these errors as warnings if they don’t follow the convention.

• To help teams enforce code quality and establish governance, incorporate Linter tools into the CI process.
• When speed is prioritized over quality during software development, these warnings frequently need to be revised.
• However, these minor mistakes can add up quickly, creating a heavy workload for your team in a short period.
• Linters quickly identify these errors so your team can quickly fix them, preventing these heavy workloads.

3. Implement Continuous Integration

Continuous integration (CI) refers to the process by which developers frequently merge changes to the main branch. Every merge initiates a short build and test cycle of automated code. However, if there is a problem, the CI system stops the code build from continuing and running. The team then receives a report and can correct the error right away.

• Teams can divide the development process into manageable chunks, ensuring more attention to detail.
• Additionally, developers receive immediate feedback to prevent errors from entering the deployment phase.
• Some of the available CI tools include Atlassian Bamboo, Jenkins, Bitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, and so forth.

4. Leave Constructive Feedback

Leaving constructive feedback or comments while writing the code will help the other readers understand the code better. But too many comments make the code cluttered and challenging to read. On the other hand, not commenting on anything puts future developers in a bind.

So, only include comments if you believe they have merit and can benefit your codebase. Here are some guidelines to follow when writing comments.

• If a function has 100 lines of code or more complex logic, add comments. These comments serve as shortcuts that describe what your function is supposed to do, saving other programmers the time to figure it out.
• Write brief comments on the top of each file, no more than three lines long, that provide a concise picture of the goal and scope of your code.
• Add comments to the top of each class to describe its function and area of application within the file.

5. Automated Testing

Writing high-quality code requires testing. It will reduce the manual workload associated with repetitive testing with automation. However, this does not imply that we can do away with manual testing. With a comprehensive test suite, you can confidently identify code flaws and refactor them.

• In the end, it depends on the API, application, etc.
• You can rely on automated API testing and unit testing if you are developing an API.
• You can use end-to-end or unit testing if it’s a web application.
• Depending on your strategy, you can follow test-driven development and employ effective testing techniques like snapshot testing.

Writing better-quality code rather than regretting it later when facing serious consequences is better. A software development team or individual developer must adhere to the best practices mentioned above to produce a successful and high-quality software product. These practices will help you with any software project.