How to ensure quality of code?

Question

I have been learning programming in C# for about a year and a half now. How should I ensure that the code that I am writing and the habits are forming are good ones?
ie. I don't want to end up having written code which only I can understand.

I know that we must use the naming conventions as per language. But are there any more concrete guidelines which I must keep in mind?

Any rules which various companies enforce on their programmers while writing code? Any Documentation standards ?

Any books/websites would also be helpful.

Answer 1

It is a tome, but I firmly believe that the information in Code Complete 2 is critical for every developer to know. Read the whole thing. It covers the details of the coding process in great detail. Everything from when to break out functions, to principles of good OO design to how to name variables. C# is not among the languages the examples are in, but that doesn't matter, it is worthwhile regardless.

Beyond that, make sure that you are using standard best practices. Do you have unit tests? Can you get people to review your code and give you feedback? Are you trying to keep up to date with the technologies that you use? From time to time re-read older code of yours and reflect on what worked, and why.

Answer 2

• Do not stop coding once the code works. Too many devs feel their job stops at making something happen. We could do this back in school without much experience. The real craft is to make the working code clean.

Answer 3

For C# you might want to check out http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/ - a tool which might teach you some things about the language.

Answer 4

Just a few points here:

• Consider reading Framework Design Guidelines. I think it's a must read book with collection of "do" and "don't" patterns in the .NET world.

• Share your code. It may sound a bit trivial but the more code review, pair programming etc. you will held the more feedback you will recieve.

• Write tests. They will not only help to spot some mistakes in implementation but your tests will be the first thing that will use your code.

Answer 5

A few ideas to consider:

Code reviews. Do you have someone that could try to understand the code and give you suggestions on how to improve what you have? This would also be in the category of finding a mentor to help develop your skills which would probably make a lot of sense as the first idea to pass along. You could also look at pair programming for another idea here where a second set of eyes does review what you write.

Unit tests. Do you have some tests for your code and how well does this explain how your code handles boundary cases? Do the tests seem like reasonable documentation when it comes to stating desired functionality? Just some questions to ponder as you put this with the rest of your code.

Continuous Integration. Granted this is more for a team case, this is another practice that can be useful in maintaining code quality.

Patterns & Practices would be a site that may help though I imagine there are probably a few other ones that may also help. Construx Blogs and ThoughtBlogs may also be useful if you want some links.

Answer 6

Microsoft framework design guidelines sits on my desk at all times. Much of the material is intuitive to pro's that regularly use the framework's objects. Still, its a great read for knowing in depth why certain decisions were made, who was involved, and there's nothing like showing another developer some written guidelines to swing a decision.

Answer 7

If you're in the C# world, then the two tools that I recommend are:

• Resharper from Jetbrains
• NDepend

The two do different, but related things.

Resharper: acts as a line-by-line aide-mémoire about things that you really should be doing. It helps with refactoring (more than standard Dev Studio), it helps indicate which items are testable, it adds to intellisense.

NDepend: acts as a code quality and exploration tool. Where Resharper helps you see and make the trees, NDepend lets you see the forest, cut firebreaks and generally keep a high-level view. The CQL (Code Query Language) is wonderful for defining project-specific problems or rules to enforce.