InterVenture Best Practices: Tomatoes Rot, and So Does the Code

Clean coding is one of the programming elephant paths of today. “Clean code always looks like it was written by someone who cares.” – says Michael Feathers. It asks for new practices and specific discipline. As a result it brings back the results.

In time, we have recognized value of clean code. We at InterVenture have seen it help maintain long running projects with less effort and with higher confidence. We have learned to keep focus on the principles of clean code.

One of the most prominent protagonists of clean coding, and one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, Robert C. Martin – Uncle Bob – has defined Principles of Object-Oriented Design. In his own words, these principles were divided into those that deal with class design, package cohesion and couplings between packages.

We want all programmers in our company to keep focused on these principles and to follow them with full understanding. This is not because we want all programmers to write the same way – Principles are not dogma and they do not lead in that direction – but because merely thinking about them trains the programmer’s eye to recognize code designed well.

So what have we done to help programmers keep an eye on the Principles of OOD? We have printed them on the wall. Now everyone can see them and, from time to time, ponder over them. We cannot tell whether this idea has enhanced our coding skills – we will never know. But we like to think that it will make us a bit better programmers in the end.