Know the Relevance of Code Quality in Custom software development
By: John James
Tags: Software Development, Code, Custom Software, Software, Software Engineering

What is Code Quality?

Among developers, code quality is a popular term, and maintaining it is a critical factor in software development. Usually, the quality of software or an app is attributed to UI, or user interface that’s intuitive, software that’s thoroughly tested, and with utmost security. Remember, high code quality could be re-developed and re-used. On the other hand, code with low quality don’t last.

Code that’s well-structured, following language rules, is a whole lot easier to read and comprehend by various browsers, as well as other developers. Code quality could be measured in various ways. Some however are the most important, including readability, predictability, consistency, robustness, extensibility, and a whole lot more.

Why we require good Code Quality in Software Development?

Writing code of good quality is not monotonous, tedious and a time-consuming task. It would be similar to planting a seed that definitely could give you numerous benefits later on and the result is a fruitful outcome. Software developers strive to provide the best standard software to the clientele.

Writing code of good quality is the main endeavor of software development, and must not be deemed as a time-consuming task, but rather, as an important investment. Why is good code required in software development? Everyone of course likes to use code that has high quality and could perform fast and efficiently.

Check out the benefits of good code quality and why it’s highly required in developing software solutions.

Easy to read

Easy to understand

Easy to maintain

Reusable and clean

Consistency throughout the software

Effective performance

Easy to demonstrate or transfer knowledge

How to achieve Code with Good Quality?

For developers under pressure to meet the next deadline, paying attention to the code quality may seem difficult. However, if you think about the long term, then definitely you should produce maintainable and readable code. Check out the major reasons why code quality is important.

1. Maintainability. Quality code is easier, less time consuming, and safer to maintain and to test.

2. Readable. A more readable and easier to understand code should be the goal of everybody. It’s more difficult to read and comprehend bad code than writing it.

3. Lesser tech debt. Code made of good quality could hasten long-term software development because it could be reused. Moreover, developers need not spend much time to polish it and fix old bugs. It furthermore makes it for new members to join in the project.

Here are several tips to keep in mind to achieve good code quality.

On every function, method, and logic, you should add comments.

Write generalized code that could be used again.

Remove commented code that’s unused that you left as is while building code.

Only perform casting when needed.

User the right types of date, names for properties, methods, variables, and classes.

Loops impact performance directly. Consider avoiding it or check other solutions.

Improve code quality

There are several ways to boost code quality. One is to use a coding standard that ensures software project consistency. Moreover, you must be cautious when it comes to analyzing and testing code completely before a project is finished. It’s also important to follow the best practices and take full advantage of automated tools.

The Best Tools for Achieving Good Code Quality

Tools and extensions like SonarQube and SonarLint are available online to use in maintaining the appropriate code standard. These tools provide suggestions for possible refactoring as well. The following is an overview of some of the commonly used available tools.

SonarQube

Known before as Sonar, it’s an open-source tools suite used for measuring and analyzing scoured code quality. Developed by Java, it could also analyze code in around twenty various programming languages.

Features:

Detect complex problems. The tool analyzers are equipped with a powerful, as well as sensitive data flow engines for detecting tricky concerns, including errors in logic, resource leaks, and null-pointers dereferences. Continuous inspection. It provides the ability of showing an app’s health, together with highlighting and emphasizing newly introduced issues. Integration with DevOps. The tool integrates with the whole toolchain of DevOps, which include CI engines, build systems, as well as promotion pipelines, with the use of web hooks and its extensive RestAPI. Centralized quality. There should only be one place for shared code quality version implementation for tech leads, programmers, managers, and executives in the management of hundreds of thousands of projects.

2. StyleCop

Utilized in analyzing consistency of the source code. Developers are obliged to adhere to the particular set of rules to maintain the consistency code consistency. It could be executed within Visual Studio or integrated to an MSBuild project. Also, the tool has been incorporated into several third-party tools.

Rules could also be customized based on your requirement. Check out the following:

Layout

Documentation

Maintainability

Ordering

Naming

Spacing

Readability

3. ReSharper

One-the-fly code quality analysis available in ASP.NET, XAML, CSS, TypeScript, HTML, JavaScript, and C#. ReSharper would let you comprehend if code could be developed, as well as recommend quick-fixes automatically. It will send out a warning if there is a problem in the code. It provides hundreds of quick-fixes as well to resolve issues in an automatic manner.

In most instances, you could choose the best quick from different options. Providing quality code comes with several major benefits. Find out more on the code quality and how this would have big benefits for a project.

More or less, software is defined by code quality. This impacts security, safety, and reliability of the codebase, and thus the software operations itself. Thus, high quality code is extremely important for most development teams, particularly those working in systems that are safety-centric.

4. SonarLint

An IDE open-source extension that helps in detecting and fixing issues when writing code. SonarLint, the same as a spell checker, lines flaws so they could be checked and fixed before code is committed.

Features:

Instant feedback. Concerns or mistakes are immediately detected and reported when coding, works the same to a spell-checker tool. Bug detection. Has thousands of rules that detect tricky bugs, common errors, and known vulnerabilities. Uncovering old concerns. Check issues that are already in existence and fix them before committing code. Awareness of what you should do. The tool finds the location of a problem accurately. Furthermore, it provides solutions and recommendations on fixing it. Learning from mistakes. Clean texts enable you to comprehend issues in a detailed way and boosts coding standards.

The Pros of Implementing Software Development Coding Standards

Coding standards, they’re procedures that define a particular programming language. The standards help in specifying the methods, style, and procedures. These could be utilized on the different aspects of a program, or those that are written in that language.

Coding standards form a critical part of any software program. The standards ensure that developers are working on a project in a specific manner and adhering to the guidelines, helping them stick to a clear plan. Thus, these standards ensure consistency across projects.

The following are the advantages that could be derived in coding standards implementation.

1. Reduced project failure risk. It occurs a lot of times that IT projects fail because of the issues that occur while developing software. Coding standards implementation minimizes a lot of concerns, and of course lowers the risk of any project to fail.

2. Intensified efficiency. Software developers usually spend the larger part of their time resolving issues that could have been prevented first and foremost. Coding standards implementation helps the development team detect issues early on in the process, or completely prevent them. This would boost efficiency throughout the process.

3. Least complexity. There are higher chances for code to be vulnerable to errors if code is complex. Coding standards help develop less complex software programs, thus minimizing errors.

4. Rectifying a Bug. Locating and correcting bugs is extremely easy if the source code is written consistently.

5. Comprehensive Appearance. A consistent source code has a clear view of the way it fits into the bigger application, or how it fits as a whole into the organization.

6. Easier to maintain. If coding standards are observed, code becomes consistent and could be maintained easily. This is because anyone could comprehend it and could modify it anytime.

7. Cost Effective. With clear code, developers have a chance to reuse it when required. This reduces cost radically, along with efforts put into development.

Coding standards, in a nutshell play a critical role in any software development success.

A Closer Look at the Best Practices in Coding Standards

1. Awareness of why you use it. What the coding standard is meant to do is put a restriction on the utilization of the problematic programming language aspects. Thus, the use of coding standards puts a stop to unspecified or undefined behavior. Moreover, it limits using constructs that are error-prone, like ‘goto’ for instance.

2. Use the rules of coding and adhering to recommendations. Typically, there are two elements to coding standards, the rules and recommendations. The backbone of a coding standard are the rules. Compliance of code is normally defined in terms of rules.

Modern rules, usually are stated in a way that would make verifying using a static analyzer seamless. Recommendations usually are advisory, and the engineer decides to follow them or otherwise. They do not normally affect compliance and are not usually statically enforceable.

3. Choosing the best coding standard that fits your industry. Coding standard should be recognized and accepted by the organization or environment it’s being used for. Choosing one that’s acknowledged by your industry is of vital importance. It lessens the qualification work amount to satisfy end users.

Some of the great examples include C, C++, and MISRA, which are all written for the automotive sector, and since have been the de facto standards applications that are safety-centric.

4. Careful updating of coding standards. Frequent coding standard updates may not be good. This is particularly true in apps that are safety-critical, in which the norms are long lifecycles. The industries moreover tend to be cautious in using new language constructs, which are not proven yet to be reliable.

5. Describe the intention behind the rule. Every rule must have an identification string, a description, and a headline. The identification string will identify the rule, such as for instance ‘Rule 10.3’. Headlines summarize the rules’ intent. For instance, ‘there must be no dead code’.

Description will elaborate headline, as well as provides a suitable context. Moreover, the description could discuss how it’s applied as well. Such as for example if it can be assessed via analysis of a single transaction unit or the entire project.

It could also include compliant and non-compliant behavior code examples, as well as rule exceptions.

6. Prioritizing coding rules. You could have a wall of bugs when you check your code against a coding standard. Categorizing rules with a severity matrix helps assess the quality of code and prioritize on fixing bugs. Assessing the quality of code helps decide whether or not to move to production.

7. Open versus closed standards. Some coding standards are open for the community to participate in, like CERT. Others are closed, like MISRA. CERT emphasis on the cooperation of the community, which results in a coding standard that’s freely available, and open web-based wiki. Users could make a comment on single guidelines and the comments are considered when reviewing the guidelines.

MISRA is developed by working groups that build and update standards in accordance to roadmap that’s pre-decided. The top-down model gives access to work that’s not publicly available usually. Normally, a fee is required that helps cover the group’s expenses. MISRA, nonetheless is influenced by community feedback as well.

Open standards could be greatly dynamic, and the guidelines could change fast. However, closed standards are great for safety-critical industries. They offer a stable reference in meeting mandatory requirements.

Summing Up

This content clearly pertains to the significance of having and implementing coding standards when developing a software application. Software developers today adhere to the standard procedure that ensure the quality of code.

It couldn’t be stressed more just how important code quality is to any software development project. And coding standards play a very important role in developing a reliable, good quality software solution.