How to Maintain and Write better Code ?

We all know that writing code can sometimes be the most difficult part of any kind of development process. If you don’t organize everything from the start – especially for big projects — the coding processes and code management afterwards may end up not just time consuming, but also a big headache.

Good code is maintainable, reusable, and testable. So, today I am going to address you some tips that helps you to keep everything as need as possible.

Avoid Global Code

Global Variables and Loops are a mess and can prove problematic when your application grows to millions of lines of code.
Think twice before you pollute the global namespace with variables, functions, loops etc.

Write Useful Comments

Write meaningful, single line comments for vague lines.
Write full parameter and functionality description for functions and methods; for tricky logic blocks, describe the logic in words before it if necessary
Don't forget, always keep your comments up to date

Use a Code Standard

It's easy to write bad, unorganized code, but it's hard to maintain such code.
Good code typically follows some standards for naming conventions, formatting etc.

Use Meaningful Structures

Structuring your applications is very important, don't use complicated structures, always stick to simplicity.
Always split the four parts of any typical application apart from each other -CSS, HTML Templated/Layouts, JavaScript, PHP Code

Use Automated Build Tools

Try to use tools like Ant or Phing to get your source prepared, compressed and deployed.

Refactor

Code refactoring is the habit of highly effective developers.
Believe it or not, you should be refactoring your code on a daily basis or your code is not in a good health.

If your function or method is more than 20-25 lines, it's more likely that you are including too much logic inside it, and you can probably split it into two or more smaller functions/methods.

If your method/function name is more than 20 characters, you should either rethink the name or rethink the whole function/method by reviewing the first rule.

Use Meaningful Names

Never use name like $k, $m and $test for your variables.
Good code should be meaningful in terms of variables names, function/method names, and class names.
Some good example of meaningful name are: $request, $dbResult and $tempfile or depending on your coding guidelines these may use underscores, camelCase or PascalCase.