Clean Code is Important
10 Feb 2022
Clean Code
Programming can be a huge jumbled mess if there is no proper organizational structure in place. There are many complexities that involve a single project and the last thing anyone should worry about is how “clean” their code is. Not clean in the sense that code should be disinfected; rather, anyone should be able to look at a piece of a code and be able to dissect it instantly. Coding standards allow for different software engineers to write code that looks similar. In my software engineering class at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, we use ESLint to format our code. It tells us when we have unnecessary spaces, unused variables, and overall improves the efficiency of our code by reducing the complexity in one simple format.
Why bother?
Programming projects should conform to a coding standard in order for it to be easily readable to not only the engineer that made it, but also other engineers. If code is easily readable by the engineer, more time can be spent understanding the program itself as opposed to understanding how the code is structured; therefore, the code can be written with fewer errors. Other engineers would also be able to read other code more efficiently. After using ESLint, I found my code to be much more understandable. Previously, I would forget about how a project would work when I took a prolonged break from working on it. However, now I can easily understand my code and get back to work much faster than before.
My Future Plan
In the future, I plan to stick to utilizing a coding standard for every project that I create. The more accustomed I become to a coding scheme, the quicker I’ll be able to code and the quicker I’ll be able to diagnose any errors that I have. Overall, coding standards make code clean for the engineer that wrote it and for others to read and help out. The only downside to using a coding format is taking the time to get accustomed to it. But as a software engineer, you have to get accustomed to many different frameworks and languages, a coding standard would add much more.