InformIT: The Bad Code Spotter’s Guide > Poor Commenting
In an age when applications have to be developed yesterday, bad coding is common – even more so in web applications, mainly due to forgiving nature of browsers and increase in number is budget level development environment (LAMP, Ruby on Rails …). Bad code is quick to identify – code that is not presented/formatted in readable way with no comments is symptomatic of other problems such as hardcoding, passing by value isntead of reference, unoptimized javascript, poor markup. Good code saves time and money all the way down the line – it reduces testing, maintenance, related errors, browser comaptibility, accessibility, suability.
Probably 80 percent of an IT budget is spent on maintenance rather than on new development, she says. Issues arise in areas such as code reuse, where a piece of faulty software can get used in three different projects, for example, and perpetuate an error in three different software product
Although modern development methods cite code quality in process (Agile, SCRUM, RUP), it is difficult to ensure unless the project manager/product manager is involved early enough to ensure this is followed, and not done based on individual developers assessment of what good code is. Good code works, is optimized, and is commented where appropropriate – easier said than done, but any seasoned developers know, this appraoch saves time and money in the long run.
