7 Key Coding Practices for Agile Developers
Agile software development is not just about flexible principles and practices. To be successful in launching software that positively impacts end users, meets technical duty, and deploys reliably, the development team must also consider their coding practices leading to flexibility and architectural standards.
An even more important consideration is for technology organizations. As difficult as it is to develop software, it is even more difficult to implement improvements and upgrades regularly over a long period of time. Devops CI / CD and IAC (infrastructure as code) partially address a critical factor, as automation allows reliable and repeatable ways to deploy applications. Add continuous testing and development teams have a way to confirm that code changes do not affect existing functionality.
As applications progress, however, initial developers move on to other projects and sometimes to other companies. When new developers join the team, they must learn the architecture of the software and understand the code before they can change it reliably and effectively.
In addition, developers who create applications often want to develop new ones. You may feel comfortable and safe to stay attached to the applications you develop, but the connection to your code is not healthy for your career or organization.
The best way to move on to new and exciting software development initiatives is to make your architecture, application, and code easily supported by other developers. Agile teams and developers need to establish and implement coding practices that support continuous software development.
Do not Rediscover the Wheel
The first rule of coding: Do not code something that does not need coding! How?
Consider asking questions about the requirements. Why is a feature important? Who benefits? In particular, explore non-coding options to resolve the issue. Sometimes the best solution is not a solution at all.
Has anyone in your organization already coded such a solution? Maybe there’s a microservice that just needs improvement or a software library that needs a minor upgrade? Be sure to review your organization’s code base before coding something new.
Are there third-party solutions, including affordable SaaS tools or open source options that meet the minimum requirements?
Have you looked at open coding repositories like GitHub for examples of codes and snippets that meet your organization’s compliance requirements?
Consider Low-Code Development Options
If you still need to encode a solution, then perhaps low-code alternative platforms can allow capabilities to be developed more efficiently than encoding development languages such as Java, .Net, PHP, and JavaScript.
Low code platforms such as Caspio, Quick Base, Appian, OutSystems and Vantiq provide tools for developing applications with little code and sometimes even no coding at all. Each platform specializes in different capabilities and is thus suitable for a particular class of applications. Caspio, for example, makes it easier to embed forms and workflows on websites. Quick Base has robust workflow and automation capabilities, and the event-driven Vantiq architecture is suitable for IoT and other real-time data applications.
There are times when coding is required, but developers also need to master one or more low-code development options and consider them for appropriate uses.
Automate Testing
Aside from writing code that meets the requirements, one of the most important things developers need to do is test it. Development test practices and automated testing tools are mature, and development teams should include unit, regression, performance, and security tests as part of their flexible assessments.
In addition to compilation and version validation tests, these tests also help make code more manageable. The tests are documentation and establish a contract on how the code should behave. When new developers join teams and inadvertently implement a bad change, continuous testing stops the compilation and provides significant feedback to the developer to deal with the problem quickly.
Externalize All Configuration Parameters
There should be no excuse for developers to put system-level hardcodes, usernames and passwords, or other configuration information into the code. I’ve seen developers use shortcuts while developing prototypes that fall into the production environment. In today’s architectures, this should never be done. Hard coding is not a technical duty, but a lazy, irresponsible coding practice that can have significant consequences. If the code becomes accidental, it creates a security vulnerability if endpoints or access credentials are exposed.
Going one step further when working on legacy code, addressing any hard-coded configurations and parameters should be a non-negotiable technical priority.
Follow the Naming Conventions and Include Comments to Make the Code Readable
You don’t have to need to program couples or crowds to admit that this is a terrible practice.
Teams should adopt naming conventions such as the JavaScript Style Guide and commit to commenting on the code at least at the modular level and ideally at the class level. In addition, organizations should consider using static code analysis tools that provide feedback to developers when the code needs refactoring for structure and readability factors.
Check the Version Control Code Frequently
If you do not check the code in the version control daily or more often, it can create conflicts and other blocks that affect the team. A small mistake can cause agile teams to skip their sprint commitments or create additional work to resolve addictions.
Teams must agree on conventions to verify code that is not ready for production. Conventional approaches include flags for Git features and branching.
Avoid Coding Heroics and Complexity
Most developers we know have become professional software engineers because they love to solve coding challenges. Coding is an art, a science and a craft, and better developers strive for thought-provoking coding tasks and elegant implementations.
In addition, there is a gray line between solving challenging business and technical tasks against the generation of coding, which leaves future developers with code that is difficult to understand and difficult to maintain.
For those of us who have been coding for a while, we remember the convenience of Perl single-line lines or the use of nested templates in C ++. Sometimes there are good reasons to use these approaches, but if a new group of developers does not understand these techniques, it is more difficult to change the code.
Driving Agility in Flexible Software Development
Rituals embedded in reflection and agile development, including engagements, choices, sprint reviews, and retrospectives, are already proven practices that enable team collaboration and stimulate successful performance. But to demonstrate flexibility over time, developers need to take on coding responsibilities and practices that allow for longer-term maintenance and extensibility of the code they develop.
Development teams need to have a critical look at their coding practices. It’s not good enough for demonstration and release today; it is also crucial to enable others to easily maintain the application and code.