My five mantras to write better Software
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We are reading code for the most part of our days. Surprisingly, when a new feature needs to be implemented we sometimes forget that our code will be read lots of times in the future (by us or someone else). Dozens of books, articles, posts, etc have been written about improving our software. I've found useful to embrace some of the ideas expressed in these sources as mantras, and have them present at all times.
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My five mantras to write better Software
- 1. My five mantras to write better Software Raúl Ávila
- 2. Mantra • “a sound, word, or phrase that is repeated by someone who is praying or meditating • “a word or phrase that is repeated often or that expresses someone’s basic beliefs” (Merrian-Webster)
- 4. We have to pay maximum attention to our code
- 5. Improving the way we write code 1. Pair programming 2. Code reviews 3. Reading books
- 7. • Embrace main ideas as mantras • Apply them consistently • On a daily basis
- 8. 1
- 9. Broken window theory • “When a community tolerates minor examples of disorder (…) such as broken windows (…) people are more likely to commit more serious crimes” Source: http://bit.ly/2ebQEgR
- 13. 1. “Don’t leave broken windows”
- 14. As soon as you see a broken window…fix it! But we have to deliver!
- 15. Two levels 1. Stop the world! 2. Next iteration
- 16. Examples
- 19. TODO comments
- 20. Unclear code formatting style
- 23. • Dead code • Unused imports • Ignored tests • Unused dependencies • Several dependencies to do the same thing
- 24. • No README file • Unclear Git strategy • Manual steps in deployments • Unstable CI Delivery practices
- 25. 2
- 29. 2. “Extract till you drop”
- 30. Short term memory Between 5 and 9 items
- 43. Benefits • Extracting increases readability • Indentation is reduced drastically • Makes responsibilities arise • Avoids big balls of mud • Facilitates benchmarking
- 45. Not extracting
- 47. Extract classes • When a function is hard to split (i.e. it has many parameters)…maybe it should be a class • Or maybe two classes! • More on this later
- 48. Extract packages
- 50. 3
- 52. 3. “Do one thing, do it well, and do it only” (Single Responsibility Principle)
- 54. What is (or what defines) a responsibility? It depends…
- 55. Functions 1. Its name describes accurately what it does 2. Such name does not have conjunctions (And / Or) 3. It does not have side effects
- 58. Classes • Definition of class: “family of functions with a clear and well defined objective” • This objective is the responsibility of the class • Responsibility as a bunch of solutions to an actor
- 59. Actors / Roles • Final user • External systems • Accountants / Stakeholders • Software Architects
- 60. Classes and actors A class must satisfy the needs of one actor, and that actor only
- 67. If we do more than one thing • Lines of code will grow without control • Share code between different responsibilities • Heterogeneous collaborators • Classes are difficult to test • Our code will be very hard to change
- 68. How to do one thing 1. Testing (TDD) 2. Extracting
- 69. 4
- 72. 4. “Abstractions in code, details in data”
- 73. 0 2 20 39 Id Name Address Parsing a message
- 78. Benefits • More robust design, as there are more immutable parts • We can code without knowing all the details (defer details) • Facilitates testing, as we can test the abstraction, not specifics • Details that are likely to change are not spread out in the code, so it’s faster to find them
- 79. Get details out of your code! • Data structures (OK, still code :)) • Properties files / YAML • Environment variables • Datastores • Configuration server
- 81. 5
- 83. Failing test Make it better Make it work Make it pretty
- 84. 5. “Make it work, make it better, make it pretty”
- 85. My five mantras 1. Don’t leave broken windows 2. Extract till you drop 3. Do one thing, do it well, and do it only 4. Abstractions in code, details in data 5. Make it work, make it better, make it pretty