Reading, Comprehending and Writing Code

15 April 2022
reading code

Here you can find the notes I took while reading “The Programmers Brain” by Felienne Hermans. The notes aren’t exhaustive, but they show what I got out of the book.

Reading code is a larger part of a programmer’s working life than you might realize. Research indicates that almost 60% of programmers’ time is spent understanding rather than writing code. Thus, improving how quickly you can read code, without losing accuracy, can help you improve your programming skills substantially.

Comprehending Code

Determine Importance: Which parts of the code are significant? This helps you find an entry point.
Infer: Fill in facts about what the code does.
Visualize: Draw diagrams of how the code works to deepen understanding.
Ask yourself questions about the code.
Use refactorings such as inlining functions or reordering them.
Replace unfamiliar code constructs.
The amount of information you can process at a time is limited [1]. Hence, it is vital when you trace through code step by step to use a memory aid.

Writing better code

Variable name quality is decided early in the project and then sticks.
Agree on common name molds early in the project.
"Name molds are patterns in which elements in a variable name are typically combined." E.g. max_benefit_per_month vs max_num_of_benefit
To choose better names:
- Select the concepts to include in the name.
- Choose the words to represent each concept.
- Construct a name using these words.
Code smells force you to read code line by line because it isn’t easy to comprehend
Use design patterns to write code that can be comprehended in chunks [2]
Leave Beacons, beacons are triggers for you while comprehending code. They help you reject or confirm an assumption. There are simple ones, like structural elements or meaningful variable names, but also complex ones which provide semantic meaning.

Reading, Comprehending and Writing Code

Comprehending Code

Writing better code

Read More code!