Maintainabilty

Maintainabilty

1. Programs should be easy to be maintained

2. Well maintained programs make it easy for programmers to understand what the code des

3. Programmers should be able to change parts of the source code without the risk of causing problems in other parts of the code

4. Features that can improve the maintainability of source code

   • Comments
     • Usually written after # or //
     • Useful for explaining what the key features of a program do
     • Well written and clear comments are fundamental for helping other programmers understand your programs
     • Makes it easier to understand it a while after the code was made
   • Indentation
     • Can be used to separate different statements in a program
     • This allows programmers to see the flow of the program more clearly and pick out the different features
     • Makes code more readable
   • Variables, sub programs, parameters
     • Should be named so that they refer to what they actually are
     • Naming them correctly helps programmers understand what they do and it makes it easier to keep track of them
     • Use naming conventions - meaningful names
   • Sub programs
     • Can make it easier for other programmers to see how different parts of a program work, which can help them understand the overall program faster
     • Makes debugging and maintaining the program easier as subprograms are usually no more than a page of code
     • Can be tested separately and shown to be correct