Poor Code Indicators and How to Improve Your Code?
Last updated: November 10, 2022 Read in fullscreen view
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The code has features that do not directly introduce a weakness or vulnerability, but indicate that the product has not been carefully developed or maintained.
What Are the Impacts of Bad Code?
Poor code quality has a host of negative impacts:
- More fire drills for developers
- More code churn
- Higher pickup and review times
- Decreased velocity
- Missed promises
- Fewer features shipped in an iteration
- Less value delivered
Bad code doesn’t just result in bad final products. It also results in fewer features and products shipped, more stress for developers, and more tension between teams.
The Key Metrics
Duplicate code
Same code structures in multiple places are immediately noticed during the source code review. Such code structures require improvement and combining.
Long parameter lists
Long parameter lists are might confuse as they lack structure. More, they are hard to use and modify.
Long method
The longer the method, the more difficult it is to understand. Writing clean code in most methods means using one to five lines of code.
Diverging modifications
Poorly structured software or copy-paste programming might result in diverging modifications when a specific part of the system is missing or needs to be changed.
Large class
When a class is supposed to do too much work, it might bring issues like an excessive number of attributes and code duplication.
Solution sprawl
This issue is often a result of rapidly updated system functionality. However, as there might not be enough time to properly integrate the features, the solution cannot implement the new capability.
Final Word
It’s easy to say that high quality code is important. It’s much harder to actually improve the quality of code that a team ships.
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