Cleaner Code: 3 Ways You Can Write Cleaner Code

Key Takeaways

how many times do you write code one day and then come back to it later just for it to be unmaintainable or maybe you're just a beginner or intermediate dev looking to write cleaner code programming is a creative art form that's a hill i will fight and die on just like other art forms there's always ways you can improve your craft a code base is like a garden you want to set it up for success and tend to it when it needs you don't want to dread ever going back into it here's some ways you can write cleaner code my examples are in python and javascript but none of these are opinionated whatsoever and you can do it in whatever language you choose this is just things that help me on my programming journey but whatever you do to keep your code clean let me know in the comments i'd love to know comments and naming conventions you've probably seen or been a part of debates about commenting your code online some say goodcode is self documenting you've also probably read code that probably could have skipped on the comment i think there's a sweet spot between no comments and comments galore i think it's also important to ask yourself what your intentions with your comments are this article from free code camp makes a really good distinction between two types of comments documentation comments and clarification comments documentation comments as long comments you would write if you intend your users to use your source code at some time this is usually to help contributors or people consuming your api in some sense usually this is long and drawn out but on purpose the second type is clarification comments you're more likely to see or use these types of comments in your own source code when you want to remember something or refactor the code at a later point what i tend to do is a mix of both some code will need clarification for reading sakes and functions or classes would heavily benefit from a doc string explaining what it does and the parameters it might take in where good code is self documenting is within its naming conventions if i had code that had comments with poor naming convention you can see how it's even harder to read this code than it would be if i did something with how i named everything when naming variables or functions or classes it's important to be very explicit with what that thing represents or does this will eliminate your need for writing redundant comments when it comes to writing good comments ellen spurtus of the stack overflow blog has an amazing article giving a detailed look into the best and worst practices for writing code comments i recommend you read it but i think the perfect way to sum it all up is number three which is if you can't write a clear comment there may be a problem with your code try and make your code clear using naming conventions that are easy to read without comments then use comments as a secondary way to add context if it's still a little bit unclear after that maybe it's time to tidy your code up a little bit oh and don't comment out your code just delete it it's in version control anyway guard clauses if statements are the bread and butter of making smart code however it's never just one simple if this then that it's usually something along the lines of if this then that else this then that then this elsa there is nothing inherently wrong with this type of setup but it causes gigantic headaches when you have to look into a nested condition to add another condition elsewhere elsewhere get it if i had this renew membership code right here well you can see how adding a condition onto this at a later point is pretty tough so they are subscribed they are a lifetime member okay what if they're not okay what if they're under 18 or over 18 this hurts my head you have to use your cursor to keep track of what nested if statements you're in this just makes things really really tough for you game developers out there i know especially you know the struggle however guard clauses make this much easier guard clauses allows you to structure your code much easier so you can read it from top to bottom so when you write your code you test for conditions first if they come back negative you simply return or throw an exception the benefit of this is that it allows you to easily come back to your code and update it accordingly no more using your cursor as some sort of makeshift bookmark device has an even more lengthier article about this showing how you can use guard clauses in an even leaner way by making a guard clause its home function it's pretty impressive actually as long as you can get this simple concept of using guard clauses to improve your functions this will really make your code so much easier to come back to single responsibility principle and long functions a jack of all trades is a master of none who even said that and i'm pretty sure that's only like half of the quote there's just been so many times where i just jumped back into an old code base saw that function name and just cringed because i knew it was going to be a tough time to deal with why because it's like a thousand lines long a principle to follow is the single responsibility principle by robert martin which defines that there should never be more than one reason for a class to change in other words every class should have only one responsibility thanks wikipedia for that little tidbit this principle thrives when you're in the debugging stage errors are going to happen more often when you give a class or function multiple things to work on however if you let it only do one thing then you're more likely to isolate the issue that is happening let's say i wanted to build an application where i generate an email and send it off to somebody realistically the scope of this is small so i could easily put it into one function as the scope of my application changes and grows like generating cool pictures for my emails i now am finding unexpected errors and don't really know who to blame for it there is no way that i will be taking responsibility for my actions this way of thinking is really important if you have really long functions or classes which is also where this principle helps with in this instance i could reduce the application into two parts one can be generating the email and the other could be sending the email by creating a generate email and send email function it's easier to add on extra functionality at a later date also when things go wrong they always do i know who to blame it is always send email keep your functions and classes short it makes it easier to digest and maintain these three tips are just some ways you can improve your code trust me there's a lot more thanks so much for watching this video guys i am having a lot of fun doing these long-form videos i just got back from vacation you can check it out on my instagram but when i got back i got back to 40 000 subscribers like that is just mind-boggling 40 000 subscribers holy crap i i can't thank every single one i read every single one of your comments and thank you so much to every single one of you i i can't thank you enough like i know it sounds cheesy but i you guys make my day i also started a discord channel so if you're interested in talking code talking about content videos whatever it might be check the link in the description thanks for watching let me know if you want to see more code tips