Code exit strategy - 3 tips

It seems many developers get stuck in the same systems maintaining the same code for years and years. While it may be a common phenomenon there are a few things you can do as a developer to avoid being trapped in your own code forever.

First make things readable.

While your brain may be wired to a system of only using single character variable and function names or naming global variables after your cats, no one else will get the system. Try to make all names as logical as you possible can. Making it easy to read the code

• not only as syntax but also in the names used in classes, functions and other objects in your source, improves the likelihood that someone else can figure out what’s going on and inherit the code someday.

Second make the code do what it supposed to.

Sure it may be cool making the system a generic all-purpose Swiss army knife of software, but preparing the code for all sorts of functions with aren’t used and aren’t needed, it only cause confusion of the next developer trying to move your code forward. Objects and class hierarchies may be suitable in some cases, but sometimes it’s more wrapping and declarations than actual code - and you’re probably on a wrong path.

Third provide in-line documentation.

Documentation are like a ghosts - it probably doesn’t exist. Making pages of documentation is probably a neat way to spend time if your on billable hours, but if you’re a regular developer, documentation is - at best a necessary evil. Do try to provide brief relevant comments, when something complicated or “not too obvious” happens in the code. Don’t place small novels in the source, but short precise guidelines.

While the above tips doesn’t guarantee your freedom to move on to new exciting projects, it surely improves the odds dramatically when you code is inheritable and accessible by another developer.