Improving Code Quality

When coding in an interview context or when presenting code on your Github profile, it’s important to spend some attention on the following:

Basic code styling (Spacing, indentation, braces, etc)
Variable/method naming (prefix and spelling, clear naming)
Language conventions (e.g., using list comprehensions in Python or async/await/promises in Javascript)
Object-Oriented Design (encapsulation, scoping, class design, etc)
Understand how to easily unit test all of your code

Common Checklist

Be sure to look out for the following things:

Try to make sure all whitespace and indentation is properly formatted and consistent throughout the code. Try using an “auto-indent” within your text editor or IDE for your language.
A common coding style convention is that class names should be written in PascalCase and variable names should be written in camelCase
Avoid any misspelled words in any methods, variables, comments, etc. This demonstrates an attention to detail in your code.
Try to include at least a few comments in your code to explain intent on certain key code blocks.
Make sure to include some reasonable code organization into objects, methods. Avoid long blocks of complicated unorganized code. The longer and more concentrated a function is, the more difficult it is to understand.
Avoid deeply nesting code. The code is more readable as it’s easier for the eye to follow and the logic is less dense and pretzel-ed.
Code that you want to sustain should be tested. If you test your code properly, you will increase your ability to modify/scale your code safely.

There are many great style guides online, you can check a few suggested language-specific ones below:

If you are working in a different language, you can often find them many of these as top results for “[language] style guide” on Google.

Here are some highly recommended resources for further reading:

Last updated 4 years ago

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