Improving Code Readability [closed]

Answer 1

Use good variable and method names. Break code up into meaningful pieces that accomplish specific purposes. Keep your classes cohesive (it all works together) and decoupled (there are few dependencies between classes). Don't repeat yourself (DRY). Follow Uncle Bob's SOLID principles (not laws, as he points out) to the degree that they work to make the code better.

Answer 2

Stick with the paradigm used within the environment you're coding.

An obvious example is using Pascal case for methods in .NET, camel case in Java.

Less obvious examples relate to using the same conventions as those used in the standard class library.

There's a lot to be said for this goal. Naming conventions convey a lot of information for humans, and very little for the compiler. Anyone who has consumed an API in one environment that uses the conventions of another environment has noticed how much the alien code stands out.

Consistency is a valuable characteristic that reduces cognitive load for a human consumer of code.

Answer 3

Have a Coding Convention between you and your colleagues. Starting with indention, covering brackets until "where does the curly bracket come: new line, same line?"

In Visual Studio one can choose and fix this style. It helps all others in your team reading the same code. It also makes history tracking in a versioning system much easier when you don't have to distinguish between 'empty' edits (change of style) and real edits.

Answer 4

Self-documenting code is:

• Good naming conventions
• Clear design and separation of responsibility between components (class, function, etc.)

Remember, though, that even the most self documenting code can only ever document what's there; never what was intentionally left out, optimized away, tried and discarded, etc. You'll always have some need for English, basically, in your source files, or you're bound to leave out important caveats and design decisions.