Three Rules for Writing Maintainable Code

There are three fundamental rules that every software developer should take into account when creating code to support long-term maintainability.

When a developer writes code, he imagines that he will be the only one who working on it in the future. But the reality is that someone else will have to work on it. This may be due to a number of reasons: New functionality may be required, changes will be needed for existing features, and fixes for defect will need attention. The latter is certainty. All of this work is often performed long after the original code was written and by a developer who did not write it. The challenge is to make the changes without breaking the existing code.

Your code will be much easier to maintain if you follow these best practices. Learn more on page 32.