A Big step to self documented code

You can always write comment to your codes. But comment itself can be outdated and misleads a developer. So writing self-documented codes must our first aim to make our code more maintainable.

In my opinion a big step to achieve self-documented code begins writing if clauses.

If a developer understands if clause, he/she understand purpose of the code block more easily.

But how can we write more readable if clause?

Very easy: Don’t write logical comparisons into if clause.

if ((preprocessedFailedEmails.Count > 0) || (failedEmails.Count > 0))
{
    //some code
}

Although this is a very simple if clause it’s a bit hard to get what is happening there. Let’s make it more readable.

bool hasErrors = ((preprocessedFailedEmails.Count > 0) || (failedEmails.Count > 0));

if (hasErrors)
{
    //some code
}

If we move one step further:

bool hasPreprocessedFailedEmail = preprocessedFailedEmails.Count > 0;
bool hasFailedEmail = failedEmails.Count > 0;
bool hasErrors = (hasPreprocessedFailedEmail || hasFailedEmail);

if (hasErrors)
{
    //some code
}

Happy coding…