1
vote
2answers
212 views

Prevent code from getting mess

I am a student and a freelance programmer. These days I am developing a software in VB6 which has recently crossed 100KB of source code. The main problem, I face is, many times I have to refactor my ...
6
votes
1answer
190 views

Are there any empirical studies about the effects of commenting source code on software quality, maintainability and developer productivity?

I am an advocate of commenting on source code and documenting software products. It is my personal experience and observation that working on source code that is rigorously commented has helped me in ...
-1
votes
3answers
141 views

Programming task to test for focus on maintainability [closed]

I am looking for a programming task, which shows whether the coder has maintainability in mind while programming. I imagine giving a task to fix a bug in a method. It should be clear to the programmer ...
8
votes
5answers
530 views

Which is more maintainable — boolean assignment via if/else or boolean expression?

Which would be considered more maintainable? if (a == b) c = true; else c = false; or c = (a == b); I've tried looking in Code Complete, but can't find an answer. I think the first is more ...
23
votes
10answers
2k views

Are flag variables an absolute evil?

I remember doing a couple of projects where I totally neglected using flags and ended up with better architecture/code; however, it is a common practice in other projects I work at, and when code ...
8
votes
2answers
369 views

How is technical debt best measured? What metric(s) are most useful? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How can I quantify the amount of technical debt that exists in a project? If I wanted to help a customer understand the degree of technical debt in his application, what ...
64
votes
17answers
5k views

How would you know if you've written readable and easily maintainable code?

How would one know if the code he created is easily maintainable and readable? Of course in your point of view (the one who written the code) your code is readable and maintainable, but we should be ...
19
votes
14answers
2k views

Why do so many developers believe performance, readability, and maintainability cannot coexist?

While responding to this question, I began to wonder why so many developers believe a good design should not account for performance because doing so would affect readability and/or maintainability. ...
0
votes
6answers
372 views

What information should a good (method- / class-) comment contain?

This is something that has bothering me for a while now. I guess there are a couple of obvious important things that should go into a comment, such as: The author(s) A description of the parameters ...
11
votes
5answers
506 views

Do high standards necessarily lead to frustration, and how to deal with it?

I consider myself a programming language enthusiast. When I find bad code, especially my own, it is hard to understand, hard to change, and hard to test. My coworkers don't know better, or don't ...