Best Practices for Software Product Development

 A few standards and best practices for software development need to be understood while creating and developing software products. Finding and disseminating best practices for software development fosters a culture of learning and closes knowledge gaps. 

Raise productivity and performance by adhering to best practices:

1. DRY Principle

This represents the phrase "Don't Repeat Yourself”. This concept states that "every piece of knowledge within a system must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation." Aim to minimize knowledge duplication at all times. This means that business logic with a certain functionality should only occur once in the application. 

2. YAGNI Principle

"You Ain't Gonna Need It" is an acronym meaning that code shouldn't be written when not needed but could be useful later. It ends up wasting time on something meaningless if that future never materializes. Alternatively, the specifications for creating software might alter, requiring restructured code. 

3. Testing Best Practices

One of the simplest ways to enhance the quality of code is to write unit tests. Unit tests are intended to test individual functionalities in small, modular chunks of code. When conducting unit tests, take into account various scenarios. Write a unit test for both a fail and a success scenario, keeping that in mind. Aim for 100% test coverage, which means that every piece of code needs to be tested.

Libraries to get the test coverage calculated:

  • Istanbul for Node.js

  • Coverage for Python

  • Serenity or JCov for Java

4. Version Control

When multiple developers are working on the same software project, this method of monitoring and controlling changes to the code is essential. It is possible to work on bug fixes and new features simultaneously, and developers don't have to worry about overwriting other people's code. If errors are made during significant software development, version control solutions also make it possible to roll back to earlier versions without interfering with team members' work.
Git and GitHub, the web-based hosting service for Git, are the most widely used version control systems. 

5. Follow Style Guides

Code functionality is typically unaffected by the use of style guides; thus, the program might function properly if you ignore them. Working with code that deviates from recommended practices, however, is typically slow and laborious. Using a linter tool, which doubles as a static code analyzer and applies style recommendations to enhance the quality of the code, is a smart idea. Linter tools alter code as it runs to highlight areas for style improvement and to address small bugs.

Linter tool examples are as follows:

  • ESLint for JavaScript

  • RuboCop for Ruby

  • plus Flake8

  • Pylint for Python

6. Naming Conventions

While it could be tempting to write code faster by omitting underscores, using humorous names, or abbreviations, doing so ultimately results in longer code. Appropriate naming improves code readability and facilitates refactoring by providing useful information about a variable or function. When someone else examines code, they ought to be able to deduce a function's purpose simply by looking at its name; there ought to be no room for speculation. Finding a misnamed section of existing code can take a long time in a large software project, which is a needless waste of labor.

7. Design Before Coding

Code quality is greatly impacted by planning, which is equally as vital as coding. Before anyone ever considers developing features, they should be planned and studied; this should be a collaborative endeavor. The developers will have the best chance of coming up with a workable plan if they discuss the various possibilities available because software design features, design patterns, and tools are unlimited. A great deal of time is typically lost when coding comes before design. In fact, there's a chance that the program won't work out as intended, necessitating more effort.

8. Avoid Promoting too many Features

Focus on striking a balance between refactoring and new features. Code refactoring is an essential step in the creation of software. Models may alter, libraries may become out-of-date, and code structure may change as a program expands in size. Ignoring these possible problems leads to technical debt that accumulates with each iteration that isn't refactored. While they don't directly improve commercial value, steps like cutting down on redundant code, streamlining intricate operations, and extracting common variables and functions facilitate the smooth running of software development processes.

9. Maintain the Production and Staging Environments

Bugs and issues are found in staging before they affect the program in a meaningful way in the production environment. Because unit tests are unable to test integrations, they are insufficient for identifying possible issues. If a staging environment isn't used, a new version of the program that isn't functioning properly can be released. This leads to a poor user experience, the requirement for a rollback of the release, possible data loss, and the waste of time and resources on hastily implemented hot fixes.

10. Conduct Code Reviews

During a code review procedure, a software developer will examine the code (or pull request) of another software developer. It lowers the amount of work needed to optimize code later on, helps find flaws, and enhances the general quality of the code. The main drawback is that analyzing a pull request or a section of code requires time, which varies depending on the feature's size.

Developers should check:

  • Design

  • Naming conventions

  • Styling

  • Fulfill requirements

  • Test coverage and application

  • Optimization

Conclusion

Software development best practices can help the organization as a whole and the software quality project in question achieve positive results when they are adhered to. Whether it's handling code reviews, unit testing, or maintaining staging and production environments, following established standards and rules is our first priority at Brigita. We follow the best possible working environment, guaranteeing that clients get the most out of the products we develop for them. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Building And Managing A Global Tech Team In 2024

Image
Handling a multinational tech team and navigating through various time zones, language obstacles, and cultural variations is a challenging endeavor. Adaptability and flexibility are becoming essential attributes for technology teams as we head toward the future. Leaders need to create a culture where learning new techniques and tools is the standard rather than the exception. This strategy not only keeps the team abreast of technological advancements but also positions them to react swiftly to unanticipated shifts in projects or the market. Keys Strategies for Building & Managing Technology Teams Implementation of Emerging Technologies Emerging technologies like edge computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence present both tremendous opportunities and formidable difficulties due to their rapid development. It is imperative that managers are equipped to incorporate new technologies into existing projects and operations. This calls for not just a technical grasp of these
Read more

Dimensionality Reduction In Predictive Modeling

We can use an easy email classification problem to demonstrate dimensionality reduction: we need to decide if the email is spam. This could include a broad range of attributes, such as the email's content, subject line, and usage of a template. However, there's a chance that some of these traits will overlap. In a different instance, a classification problem that depends on humidity and rainfall can be simplified to a single underlying characteristic due to the tight link between the two. We might therefore reduce the number of features in these problems. Unlike 2-D and 1-D problems, which can both be reduced to a straightforward 2-dimensional space, a 3-D classification problem could be difficult to visualize. A machine learning model's performance can also be improved by using dimensionality reduction as a data preparation method. With the aid of Brigita AI ML services , you may include additional machine learning-related data preparation procedures in your company initia
Read more

Future of Intelligent Document Processing

Innovations in document processing and management will propel IDP forward, making it a promising future. As companies look to improve efficiency and remain competitive, IDP will undoubtedly be essential in ensuring performance.  NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING INTEGRATION Artificial intelligence' s natural language processing (NLP) technology allows computers to understand and interpret human speech. When NLP is incorporated into IDP, businesses may process documents in multiple languages and, more accurately, extract relevant data. This invention will help streamline operations and increase its worldwide reach.  BLOCKCHAIN INTEGRATION Blockchain technology is ideal for document management because of its decentralized, secure storage. By integrating blockchain with IDP, organizations can handle, exchange, and save documents in a secure and unchangeable manner. Organizations can minimize the risk of fraud and errors by making sure their documents are real and legitimate. INCREASED AUTOM
Read more