High-Quality Code from the Get-Go
Save loads of time and money by utilising high-quality code from the very start of your product development.
The Quality of Code
Code is essentially a bunch of commands that determine a machine’s behaviour, while triggered by other factors. It’s no mystery that the code used for any program requires maintenance and needs to be updated from time to time. This means that someone will have to periodically read and modify the codebase.
But that’s not all! With time passing, the business requirements are likely to change. A business might want to add a feature or two or remove an old feature. And of course, these changes need to be done well and done quickly.
Here was my first important finding — code quality can be measured by the time spent on reading, understanding and, eventually modifying the code itself. Having too many pointless and unnecessary dependencies spread all over the codebase will lead to big headaches for your developers and will cost you. Time is money and taking the time of developers is expensive.
Code of poor quality will most likely be full of bugs that may or may not be released to the end-user, and you definitely don’t want this to happen. Having frustrated developers under pressure is bad enough, and you really don’t want users moving away from your app because of poor usability and a negative user experience.
What Developers Have to Say
It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to purchase handmade shoes or if you found a fancy restaurant downtown for a nice dinner — you have inevitably encountered the term “high quality” via a marketing product or service.
If you were looking to employ a digital product house for the development of your software idea, you’ve likely had discussions about the ‘code quality’ and how it’ll influence your software. The term “high quality” will probably come up again, and the while we naturally associate this with “more expensive”, it might actually be quite the opposite! In the case of software development, it certainly is.
It can be difficult to predict the exact savings that come directly from higher quality goods, or the impact of using a high-quality service. And because there are so many soft factors, it’s practically impossible to quantify.
However, while consulting customers on their software ideas, I noticed that when the topic of high-quality code comes up, there is this invisible cost-alert switch that goes off — the logic is simple; “High-quality code = high-quality price”. So, I decided to consult developers of different specialisations to translate the concept of ‘code-quality’ into something understandable for people like me — with no technical background.
The Concept of Quality
According to the Cambridge dictionary: Quality at large is a standard of how good or bad something is. You don’t have to achieve the ultimate level of spiritual self-consciousness to understand that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are just constructs that are essentially meaningless for how well it fulfils your expectations.
What is code-quality then? Based on the definition above, you could say code-quality signifies how well the code is written. Simple. But wait… How do you make sure your code quality is actually good quality?
Making Sure Your Code is Top Quality
There are various methods for assessing the code quality and most of them, which are just good practice while developing any software, will save you from ending up with what developers call ‘the spaghetti code’. The best digital product houses will always have at least a few of them in place, and my advice is to ask your developers how they go about the quality of their programming and whether they use some of the following practices:
User Experience Testing — it’s important to keep the user in mind when developing a product, and the best way to do this is to replicate a user’s behaviour. This will help to avoid errors in the end product, which will make for a smoother user experience. There are different approaches to testing; automatic tests or ‘human testing’ and it’s highly contextual to say which one is better, as they serve different purposes. It’s always a good sign if your software provider practices Test Driven Development (a development process of writing automated tests before it’s even implemented)
Coding Principles — Code quality is a direct effect of how it’s being written — and that stems from the approach a developer has to coding. There are coding principles like SOLID or DRY, that help keep your code readable, modifiable and scalable.
Why Should You Care?
It’s a logical assumption that the quality of code directly influences the scalability of your digital business. Not taking care of your code could hamper your ability to grow.
It’s also logical to assume that getting involved with a development partner who focuses on the quality of code they produce, will, turn out to be less expensive in the long-run.
Starting a project with good quality code has clear benefits in terms of time and money, particularly if developers need to put effort into trying to make changes to your product with poorly written code.
The money you can save on development is just one side of the coin, the other is the about the Ultimate Validators, a.k.a. your users! If your users come across bugs or errors that hinder their ability to use the software, they will just give up and move to another product. It’s difficult to get a user back if they’ve already moved on, and it’s quite clear that it’d be better to ensure smooth user experience from the start.
I Need High-Quality Code!
…I can hear you saying to yourself…because now you know that high-quality code is organised and simplified, so that any changes that need to be made, can be made easily. It allows a project to be picked up by different developers, not relying on the original developer solely. It is a great preventative measure for things, such as bugs, because if there are any, they can more easily be found and corrected.
Starting your product off right, with high-quality code! It’ll save you time and money, improve user experience and help your business grow with less headache.
…
Tap the 👏 button if you found this article useful!
About the Author
Piotr is a Business Development Executive at EL Passion. You can find him on LinkedIn.
Find EL Passion on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
