Today, I would like to share with you a few useful tips on how to improve your coding skills:
1: Be clear about system needs:
Requirement gathering is the most important step of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). It is the first and foremost step and utmost importance should be given to it in order to achieve the required results. Improper requirement gathering leads to improper coding which in turn leads to end product which is not as per the requirement. Hence taking time to understand the system’s need will help further.
2: Plan accordingly:
It is necessary to chalk out a proper plan before you start coding. It is a good practice to make basic flowchart or an equation.
A big problem can be solved easily by breaking into parts. So try to adopt a modular approach as modules can be easily understandable and the quality can be easily controlled.
It is a common practice to start the coding process without a proper plan in place. This may lead to an increase in debugging time. Planning at preliminary stages saves time and effort.
3: Use standards in variable declaration:
Always try to follow standard conventions for defining variables. It helps in keeping track of variable type and also its purpose. It also makes the code more readable. It makes debugging and maintenance of the system simpler.
Use conventions for variables like add its data type as prefix. Example: For integer variables you can use: intUserId and for strings: strUserName. You can choose your conventions but make sure that it will be same for the entire project.
4: Organize your Code:
Always try to make proper indentation for the block of code especially for the conditional blocks like
IF – ELSE, WHILE etc.
It is better to use ‘tab’ instead of ‘spacebar’ for aligning lines of the code.
Try to put spaces between a variable name and an operator such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, etc. For example: variable = a + b;
It makes the code more readable and easily understandable and makes debugging easier.
5: Comment on your code:
Try to write a comment on your code as much as possible. This is a very good practice as it makes your code understandable. Commenting will help to understand the logic later or help someone else to understand the intention of your code. It is really very helpful for the new developer to understand the current logic and edit as per requirement and hence saves time.