What is Clean Code?

Even though developers might end up doing the same job, which is mainly writing code, they also come to define clean code differently. If you ask different developers out there about the meaning of clean code, you might receive different opinions, but most of the time they lead to the same conclusion. Generally speaking, we have to say that there isn’t a specific definition for clean code, but there are several ideas about the best practice for it. Read this article to learn more about clean code.

Learn More about Clean Code

Many developers tried to reach a general definition for clean code after reading many books about it, and the one which became publicly famous to deliver the meaning of clean code and help people understand what it is, was that clean code is “the code that is easy to understand and easy to change”.

Even though this generalized definition might look easy, it sometimes fails to deliver the real meaning behind it. To break this definition into smaller parts and make it more understandable, we have to say that the first part of the definition that says “easy to understand” means that it is easy to read, whether by the original author or someone else, on all the different levels and this includes the flow of the entire application, how the different objects collaborate with each other, the role and responsibility of each class, what each method does, and the purpose of each expression and variable.

The second part of the definition, which says “easy to change”, means that the code is easy to extend and refactor, as well as fix bugs in the code base. There are some rules that should be present when we are talking about the code that is easy to change, such as having classes and methods that are small and only have single responsibility, the classes have clear and concise public APIs, classes and methods are predictable, the code is easy to be tested, and the tests are easy to understand and easy to be made.

We have to say that not all people care about clean code, but in fact they should, because it actually falls in the quality criteria related to any business out there. The reason why most developers don’t care about having a clean code is that they believe it takes time, effort, attention, and care, and also they always focus their attention on having a software that solves their problem, no matter how the code looks like at the end, since it is the least visible aspect in software development.

Why is Clean Code Important?

Even though lots of programmers or developers don’t pay close attention to writing a clean code, because just a code can help with solving a problem, it is still considered important that they do.

With every line of code that programmers and developers add to an application, they are also adding the risk of adding bugs, doing more testing, as well as failing, and that’s why they should reduce the code they are writing but on the other side add more value to it, and that’s exactly what clean code is all about.

Codes are not just written for the time being, but they are also written for the future, and they are not written for one time and forgotten, but most probably someone else will come across in the future and examine it or maybe do some changes, that’s why putting some effort to keep the code simple and in order, as well as paying attention to the details, will help you and your coworkers in the future when you come to that code again.

So, here are the most important benefits for a clean code:

• They provide more clarity, making it easier to pass a line of code from one programmer to the other easily throughout the years. The use of classes, procedures, and namespaces needs to be written carefully in order for the developers to be as clear as possible in order to make transforming the project they are working on from one team to the other as easy as possible.

• Clean code makes the project you are working on look more efficient. The thing with coding is that you are not writing it just for yourself or for the team you are working with currently, but you are writing code that other teams in the future will come across and work with. Clean code is actually prepared for any changes that might occur along the way and it helps software developers in orienting themselves around the code base.

• For software developers, writing a code might be considered an easy task, what is challenging at this point is analyzing this written code, that’s why many of them prefer to write new codes instead of reading and trying to understand the existing database. Writing a clean code at this point will be needed in this stage to make the process of analyzing the code much easier, without facing any issues related to the readability of the code.

There are some general rules for writing a clean code which any software developer should consider, such as naming conventions, using conventions that indicate variable scope, paying attention to code formatting, adding comments to your code, keeping the function definitions concise, and creating classes.

Keeping your code clean will require some effort and time, but when thinking about it in the long run, you will realize that you are making things easier for the future. Writing a clean code in general is not difficult, it just needs some practice, but once you get your hands on it, you will realize that it did not only make it all easier for your team, but it made your code look a lot better as well.

You could learn to code through our coding platform that helps you learn everything through both the blockly and the textual methods. You could check the different plans we have here and subscribe to get started.