Clean Coding - Common Sense

[cbk1994]

Hello everyone. I'm Chris Zakuto, I script a ton in GS2. Whenever I go onto another server, I find the owners begging me to fix something, so I go in to fix it, and oh no! I see messy code, which happens to give me a headache.

I'll explain how to make code easier to read by yourself, and easier to read and edit by others aswell.

Part I -- Spaces
This is one of the simplest things to do, and it's very easy to get used to. Just add spaces! For example, let's say we're setting a variable.

PHP Code:

x=screenwidth/2-(width/2); 


That's okay, works the same, but it much cleaner if you do it like this.

PHP Code:

x = screenwidth / 2 - ( width / 2 ); 


All I did was add a space after the variable name (x), a space after the equals, a space after the screenwidth, a space after the division sign, etc.
Very simple and very easy to do. Try it out in your next script and see how much better it looks.
Another thing I do is put spaces before and after parenthesis "(" and ")". Check these out.

PHP Code:

function onCreated(){
if(var==true){
dosomething("bob","fish","toothpaste");
}
} 


Fix it by adding spaces after the parenthesis and after a comma. (and also after the if)

PHP Code:

function onCreated()
{
if ( var == true )
{
dosomething( "bob", "fish", "toothpaste" );
}
} 


Much cleaner (would look even better with formatting).

Part II - Separate Lines
No, this actually makes your script look better. It's not just some way to increase line count (which doesn't actually matter at all...)
For each brace "{" and "}" give it it's own line. This looks much better, and is a huge step closer to clean coding. For example

PHP Code:

if (true){
milkacow();}else{
toobad();} 


That's much too crowded.

PHP Code:

if ( true )
{
milkacow();
}
else
{
toobad();
} 


More lines, but that doesn't matter. Much cleaner code, especially in longer scripts.
Another thing I hate is an event that has a single line of code and has no brackets.

PHP Code:

function onCreated()godosomething(); 


Can be corrected easily

PHP Code:

function onCreated()
{
  godosomething();
} 


Part III - Formatting
Now that you have everything else down, this is probably the most important part, and all it takes is the tab button every once in a while. Take a look at this code.

PHP Code:

function onCreated()
{
if (true )
{
if ( godosomething() == 5 )
{
dosomethingelse();
}
}
} 


Eww, ugly. Check this out.

PHP Code:

function onCreated()
{
  if ( true )
  {
    if ( godosomething() == 5 )
    {
      dosomethingelse();
    }
  }
} 


That's the last time you'll ever be caught searching for where you forgot to put that end brace! All it takes is a tab. Whenever you create a new opening brace, immediatly make the closing brace. I always do that, and it always works for me. I never have too many/too few braces in my programs.

Part IV - Naming Functions
This is really just something that makes your code look nicer. I've used several examples of functions here, such as dosomethingelse(), godosomething(), and milkacow(). These are a little ugly, but are incredibly easy to fix.
What you do is take the first word of a function (I'll use the function godosomethingelse()), and then add the rest of the words with their first capitalized. For example, that godosomethingelse() can be split into:
go do something else
now change it to this
go Do Something Else
then put them together and you have
goDoSomethingElse();
Much nicer.

Hope you all enjoyed this guide. Leave comments as you wish, but please don't flame.
Chris Zakuto