Code Quality presentation going through different practices that improves code quality on a project

1. Code Quality
François Camus

2. Why?
 Maintenance is what is most expensive in software life
time
 Once in production it is harder to apply fixes
 Need to ensure best code quality as we don't know what
changes will need to be made in the future and who will
be making those changes
 Better to spend a bit more time now to make it readable
and understandable by anyone, than struggle later with
the risk of wasting a lot more time, or even having to re-
write

3. Clean Code Bible

4. Some Clean Code Principles
 Boy Scout rule
 "Leave the campground cleaner than you found it."
 DRY: Don't Repeat Yourself
 To avoid code duplication
 Dependency Injection pattern...
 SRP: Single Responsibility Principles
 "Functions should do one thing. They should do it well. They
should do it only." - Robert C. Martin
 Other interesting principles (SOLID...)
 http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.PrinciplesOfOod

5. Famous Quotes
 "Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a
violent psychopath who knows where you live" - Rick Osborne
 "Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good
programmers write code that humans can understand." - Martin Fowler
 "When you feel the need to write a comment, first try to refactor the
code so that any comment becomes superfluous" - Martin Fowler
 Clean Code Quotes by Robert C. Martin
 "Later equals never."
 "The only way to make the deadline -- the only way to go fast -- is to keep the
code as clean as possible at all times."
 "Clean code always looks like it was written by someone who cares."
 Some more: http://alvinalexander.com/programming/clean-code-quotes-robert-
c-martin

6. Pair Programming
 Two developers on same computer
 Driver: Writes the code
 Navigator: Reviews what’s being typed
 Need to switch roles often
 Can be useful when designing complex part of a system or when fixing bugs
 Advantages
 Better code quality (constant reviewing)
 Less code (constant refactoring)
 Better communication within the team (knowledge transfer)
 Anger Management
 Developers need diplomacy, humility and open-mindness
 Not easy to accept criticism
 Time Management
 Podomoro Technique (switch every 20 minutes with 5 minutes break in between)
 Avoid long sessions as it's quite tiring
 Possible trigger: “Hey mate I need another pair of eyes.”

7. Code Review
 Better before commit to avoid crappy commits
 Review process
 Demo new functionality
 Show all unit tests pass
 Go through all modified, added, deleted files
 Need small and regular commits to avoid long sessions
 Reviewer should be able to quickly spot complex parts of
the code that needs refactoring to ease future
maintenance
 Can also ask to test in certain conditions
 Reviewer only provides suggestions

8. Unit Testing/TDD
 To ease software changes and avoid invisible breaking
changes
 Better flexibility, reusability
 Better robustness
 Safety net
 Developers not scared of making changes
 TDD vs Change and Pray Development
 Based on Dependency Injection pattern

9. Things to improve
 Build server to run unit tests (C# and javascript)
 Better practice of pair programming and code review
 Involve QA team
 Choose coding standard common to all teams
 Microsoft coding standards for C# (online)
 Measuring software quality punctually via build server
 Number of bugs, test coverage, code duplication...
 Do some brown bag sessions
 Concentrating on specific subject to educate developers
 For example, watching Uncle Bob’s videos on clean code

10. Things to improve
 Build server to run unit tests (C# and javascript)
 Better practice of pair programming and code review
 Involve QA team
 Choose coding standard common to all teams
 Microsoft coding standards for C# (online)
 Measuring software quality punctually via build server
 Number of bugs, test coverage, code duplication...
 Do some brown bag sessions
 Concentrating on specific subject to educate developers
 For example, watching Uncle Bob’s videos on clean code