In this article, we will discuss some very cool tips for writing clean and concise in C# code for more maintainability and understanding. We’ll discuss how we can write few lines of code to do the same job instead of writing extra line of code. Every piece of knowledge in the code should have a single and unambiguous representation within a system. DRY is a valuable principle in software development that keeps a system clean and understandable. Before you start writing software, you should consider your coding style and use the DRY principle as often as possible. I am very careful not to write clever code that is not easy to maintain.

These are guidelines and nothing more, but they are ones codified over many years of collective experience by the authors of Clean Code. In the above example there are two null-conditional operators, one checks null in the employee object and another checks null in the address object present inside the employee. If any one is null then addressID will be set to null. If an employee is null we throw an exception and code does not continue to execute.

And another random method that creates and returns a data filled student object. Alternatively,you could also create an Enum for the User Roles and simply use it. The best approach to writing, including CSS files, is an external Style Sheet that is used to link the element. This is the best method to maintain and reuse the CSS file across different pages with ease and efficiency.

Automate to save time and space

Don’t ever allow your classes and methods to do side jobs that they never intended to do. Following below here we have example of clean and bad practice of writing code. One of the most important things when working in teams is to constantly improve the code that you write.

Programming is all about solving problems, and the best way to do that is by writing clear, concise code. Adding comments to your code can make it more readable. However, using too many of them can make your code harder to follow. So try to avoid using comments whenever possible – your code should be self-explanatory.

It can create confusion among developers and they get distracted as well due to useless comments. In addition, avoid too many prefixes or special encoding. A practice highlighted in our guide is to prefix private member variables with an underscore to differentiate them from local variables. Some style guides use prefixes for private member variables , constants , or static variables , so the name reveals more about the variable. Most style guides include basic formatting rules. Meanwhile, specific naming conventions, policy on use of namespaces, and strategies for classes are somewhat abstract areas that can be refined over time.

These nuances can be the difference between ugly, convoluted code and beautiful, easy-to-maintain code. Over time, you accumulate a lot of commented-out blocks of code that are no longer needed yet clutter up your source files. And the funny thing is that in a lot of cases, the how to write cleaner code in C# surrounding code has evolved, so the commented-out code wouldn't work even if restored. Every function should aim to do one single thing, and every class should aim to represent one particular concept. This is a simplification, of course, but when in doubt, simpler is cleaner.

More articles

The KISS principle says that “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Therefore, follow this rule to increase the code quality. It’s easy to get carried away with complicated code, but the KISS principle suggests otherwise. Returning null is a common programming practice used when a method cannot complete its action.

The KISS principle is especially notable as a software engineering heuristic. It is also an example of a design principle, a set of guidelines for the process of designing or creating a new system or implementing a new feature. A God class is a class that tries to accomplish everything, usually by extending another class or classes.

Names Conclusion

They do this because they know that for every line of code they write, the codebase gets a little bigger, a little more complicated, and a little harder to work with. A code review doesn’t have to be something formal. It can be as simple as asking a colleague to look at your code https://globalcloudteam.com/ to see if they can spot any improvements you can make. Having someone else look at your code can find errors that you may have missed. Worry about performance issues once you finish implementing and after testing the feature. In addition, it makes your method harder to reuse.

This is a common technique used extensively in the default generated codes by Microsoft. Here, each method returns an object and these functions will be chained together in a single line. There is often a practice of commenting out the unused code. This ultimately increases the lines of code when the application gets compiled. You could use source controls like Git to make sure that you can revert back at any time.

Recently, X-Teamers discussed their most important principles to keep their code clean, and we decided to share the best ones with the world. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an experienced programmer, you should always try to become a good programmer (not just a programmer…). This coding book is for C# developers, team leads, senior software engineers, and software architects who want to improve the efficiency of their legacy systems. A strong understanding of C# programming is required.

The legacy browsers tend to render elements differently compared to the modern browsers. It is due to this reason browser version renders the padding and margins to all elements. Moreover, when you only need to set one or two properties or need to override something, longhand is a better choice to switch to. Another disadvantage of using shorthand code everywhere is that it will reset the ignored properties which will cause an undesirable effect. This is what happens when a CSS code isn’t working as it is supposed to.

And the better you write it, the more likely it will be useful for you and someone else. Explicitly throwing an exception can interfere with the debugging process; call throw instead. If you are developing and you find that a function does not have only one level of abstraction, but has several, this means that the function is doing too many things by itself. If you have more than 2 arguments in your function, it means that function is doing too many things. By not using private/protected members, they are susceptible to being modified and this can cause errors in the code.

What is clean code in C#?

The “using” statement is a handy tool when writing code in C#. When you’re writing code for a project, there are certain things that you can go ahead and do yourself. Use constants instead of magic numbers and strings when you have a value that doesn’t change and needs to be used in more than one place. Instead of looking up the number or string in more than one place, you simply have to change it in one place.

• For using ReSharper, we need to download the ReSharper from here.
• Both resources focus on the most common coding conventions you’ll encounter while developing in Unity.
• This is something we all developers Hate, don’t we?
• When you want to do more beyond getting an object property, you don't have to look up and change every accessor in your codebase.
• And the funny thing is that in a lot of cases, the surrounding code has evolved, so the commented-out code wouldn't work even if restored.
• Having too many parameters for methods is irritating.
• But as application grows things start messing up and it becomes hard to manage the code.

You'd probably have to read the entire chunk of code to reverse engineer its meaning. On the other hand, the meaning of a variable like distanceBetweenXY is instantly recognizable. Don't leave commented out code in your codebaseVersion control exists for a reason. For example, indent style is space and tab mixed in the project. There's a lot to learn about async and await, and it's natural to get a little disoriented. Here's a quick reference of solutions to common problems.

Don’t ignore caught errors

With this principle in mind, let's review the reasons clean code matters and dive into some tips and tricks when it comes to how we can do it in practice. When you have some experience developing C# code, you start to notice that you can do things in a better way. The problem is that it’s harder to change existing code than to write new code. For example, if you need ORM (Object-Relational Mapping), use Entity Framework Core or Dapper. ORM can be an excellent solution for some applications. They’re easy to use, save you time and provide you with a huge range of functionality.

How to Write Functions

While they are not identical concepts, DIP keeps high-level modules from knowing the details of its low-level modules and setting them up. A huge benefit of this is that it reduces the coupling between modules. Coupling is a very bad development pattern because it makes your code hard to refactor. If you can do this, you will be happier than the vast majority of other programmers. Using whitespace can be incredibly powerful and normally has absolutely no downside.

Indicate variable scope

It’s entirely up to you about how you want to do it, but the bottom line is that you stick to the order so that it becomes easy to find things later. Read about programming best practices to improve the way you write code. The code above can be cleaner and more readable if we separate the runtime and compile-time declarations. And this is done by declaring the types — the compile type declarations first.

While it’s good advice, often it’s too restrictive. Based on my personal experience, I find 4-5 parameters an upper limit on method parameters. For more information on how to perform this refactoring and why it’s one of the most critical refactorings, read this article. Additionally, if you need to change to a lengthy method, you may have to scroll through a lot of code to find the right place. When working on a project, it is crucial to keep your code organized. You can do this by creating folders inside of the solution.

The key point is, they promised to do another thing and you need to read the code carefully to notice the side-effect. Sometimes it is hard to look at the function and see if it is doing multiple things or not. One good way to check is to try to extract another function with a different name.

Functions should do one thingThis is by far the most important rule in software engineering. When functions do more than one thing, they are harder to compose, test, and reason about. When you can isolate a function to just one action, they can be refactored easily and your code will read much cleaner.

Microsoft's Visual Studio is an excellent and entirely free tool. Intellisense features in Visual Studio are pretty stable, and they can correct and recommend code changes. Rider IDE is also preferred by some developers, but it isn’t free.