Fewer WTFs/MINUTE To The Rescue!

Today, we'll talk about Clean Code in JavaScript. The ultimate goal of Clean Code is to make our code readable and maintainable.

Writing Clean Code matters because it reduces bugs, and improves overall code quality.

Many developers struggle with messy, hard-to-follow code, leading to slower development and increased technical debt.

Clean Code is not only a nice to have. It's a requirement for excellent code.

Clean Code in JavaScript is about creating code that's easy to read, understand, and modify, benefiting you and your team.

- Simplicity

- Maintainability

- Easy and fun to read

- Efficient Problem-solving 

- Collective team effort is required

Simplicity

Striving for simplicity in design and implementation leads to more maintainable code.

You want a simple code, not a fancy code which nobody understands. Let's see a common example to make our code simpler:

In your code, functions should do one thing.

Bad

Good

Maintainability

One golden rule:

Go back to your code the next day you coded it. If you struggle a lot to understand it, change immediately.

Make code easy to understand. That allows us to add and change features, and fix bugs efficiently.

Easy and fun to read

Use descriptive names, proper formatting, and consistent coding conventions to improve readability. You want code that is easy for you to deal with. Complex code understandable only the time the developer was programming it is the last thing we want.

Let’s see a good practice with JavaScript variables!

Meaningful variable names

Efficient Problem-solving

The top 1 thing you want...

Solve people's problems

The user-centered mindset is key. You are coding to solve real user problems. Users don't care if your code is the fanciest on the planet. They only care you are solving their problems.

Clean Code solves the problem in the most efficient way possible.

Remember, your code should be as simple as possible but always solve your clients' problems.

Collective team effort is required

Establish coding standards and conventions to ensure everyone on the team contributes to Clean Code.

Encourage peer reviews and feedback to maintain code quality.

Tools like ESLint and Prettier should be a requirement in all projects. They help to follow the same code standards across the team.

Conclusion

Embrace Clean Code principles to enhance your JavaScript development skills, reducing errors, and delivering higher-quality code.

By prioritizing readability and simplicity, you'll create code that's not only functional but also elegant and maintainable.

Lastly, I want to share the most famous image about measuring code quality.

Count the WTFs/Minute! :)