Developer Do’s and Don’ts
So I’ve been a developer for a few years now and I’ve done and seen some pretty bad practices and habits over the years. This is a compilation of the worst practices that you should avoid.
Committing Useless Code
This probably sounds like a given, but too many times I’ve seen developers push code to repositories — heck even production, with huge blocks of commented code and functions that aren’t being utilised.
This leads to a lot of confusion when others try to determine what your code is doing and why that commented out code is there.
There’s also code that just isn’t used at all, but was added for testing a theory — remove it. Don’t make the codebase a mess, and don’t make things hard for others.
Not Testing Your Code
Confidence is great and all, but due diligence is important when developing software. For every change you make, you should test it. Recompile or Restart your application, make sure it runs, and test to see that your change works. Just assuming it does, can end up taking down services.
Pointless Commit Messages
Yup, we’ve probably all been through this with someone who adds a commit message like “updated this controller” — yes, that’s terrible, or even worse — “made changes”. This is an absolutely inconsiderate, and unprofessional thing to do, commit messages are there so that they can be referenced and tied to what was actually done in the changes. They’re not just an annoying extra step to bypass.
Lack of Communication
Too many times as developers, we tend to under communicate — we don’t keep our fellow developers, project managers or leads up to date on what we’re actually doing. We don’t follow up letting others know where we’re at with what we’re working on in a timely manner, we get lost in the code.
While it’s great to be getting things done, sometimes even more important is communicating that message. Otherwise as far as anyone else is concerned, you’ve done nothing and that causes many issues. Communication is essential everywhere.
Not Reviewing Your Commits/Pull Requests Before Merging
The Diff Screen in Git Platforms (Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab) are there for a reason, so you can visually see all the changes that you’re making, it’s not a great idea to skip this. We’re all humans, we make mistakes, ensure that everything being merged is intentional and useful.
Not Pulling From The Main Branch Before Pushing / Merging Into Main
This is…probably the worst…you end up overwriting others changes and pushing outdated code. Need I say more? Please be careful, Git is there to protect you, it’s your friend, and good friends learn about each other.
So be a good friend and learn how to use Git well! :D
Not Documenting Your Code
I don’t know a developer who isn’t guilty of this one…but if you’ve ever worked on a poorly documented project or a project without any documentation, you know what a horrible experience that can be.
Development is more than just writing code, that’s why you’re called a “Developer” and not a “Coder”. There’s a difference. So be a good Developer and make thoughtful decisions and execute mindfully. Be nice to your clients (that includes your bosses, they’re your clients too) and your fellow developers, document your code :).