As you all know I used to be programmer back in the day, and to be honest I’m still doing things behind the scenes and exercising my programming “muscles” as it were.
There are certain rules that all programmers should follow, they’re really just common sense, and boy do I get irked when I have to go in and clean up the mess that someone else has created by ignoring said rules.
Here’s the main couple of rules that should always be remembered:
- Documentation – in case you get hit by a bus or for whatever reason someone else will be working on whatever you’ve created, please include comments and documentation to describe what the heck you’re doing where. Not everyone’s brains work the same, of course, and there is always more than one way to skin a cat, so in order for someone else to be able to step in and follow your logic it’s simple common courtesy to add documentation.
- Hard Coding – simply put, hard coding = headaches all around. Even if it will be you working on this same program for perpetuity, any time that you hard code something into your program you’re setting yourself up for big troubles later. What if something, anything, changes later on – are you going to magically remember to update those values that you have hard coded? Most likely not. Programming should be as generic as possible so that the same functions can be called over and over and over again without having to write any new code at all. Imagine that, what a concept!
So, for those of you that are styling yourselves as programmers, website designers, or whatever the case may be that involves programming of any kind, if you haven’t had any formal training you may not know these few cardinal rules. However, after reading this post you have absolutely no reason to carry on with your faulty ways – get up to speed and be responsible!