When you think of coding, usually the first thing that comes to mind is problem solving. Making things work.

But there’s much more to it.

Code needs to be maintainable. You want to make sure that other people who look at your code (or even you a few months later) can figure out what’s going on and make changes quickly.

Here are a few tips:

  1. Name things so that it’s obvious what they are/do. If you were to tell a person who’s not on your team, the name of a variable, method, class etc, would they be able to guess its meaning?
  2. Just like with regular communication, avoid the use of acronyms and abbreviations.
  3. Avoid clever one-liners. They are confusing and difficult to debug. Clarity over cleverness.