Clean Code - Code Smells

Code smells are just signs that indicate code is not organized and it needs to be refactored. They are clues to poor design and implementation choices. Code smells make your code harder to maintain, and understand, and also hard to extend. By identifying code smells and fixing them, you can improve the quality of your code-base and make it very easy to work with.

Common Code Smells

There are many code smells that you should be aware of. Here are some common code smells:

• Duplicated Code: When you write similar code at multiple places, You should refactor it right after you notice it. These duplicated codes make the codebase messier.
• Long Methods: When methods are too long, they become hard to manage. It's not okay to assign too many tasks to one method instead we should break one task into smaller tasks. Meaning, we should break one method and make more methods to do tasks.
• Large Classes: Just like long methods, long classes also cause the problem. We should not assign multiple responsibilities to a single class. Instead, make other classes for each task.
• Complex Conditionals: If you use too many conditional statements, If-Else code becomes hard to understand and also reduces the performance. Simplify your logic and try to avoid using too many nested if-else. Try to simplify wherever possible.
• Primitive Use: When you use primitive data types instead of creating custom classes, it's a sign that you need to refactor your code. Using over excessive use of primitive makes your code harder to understand and maintain.
• Switch Statements: When you use and notice switch statements in your code, it's a sign that you need to refactor your code. Because switch statements violate the open-closed principle and make your code harder to extend.
• Shotgun Surgery: When you have to make the same changes in multiple places, it's a sign that your code is not well-structured. Shotgun surgery always makes your code harder to maintain and increases the risk of bugs, so keep this in mind.

How to Fix Code Smells?

Fixing code smells is an essential part of the software development process. Below we have provided some methods to fix code smells:

• Identify Code Smells: Learn to recognize common code smells in your codebase. Look for duplicated code, long methods, large classes, complex conditionals, primitive use, switch statements, and shotgun surgery.
• Refactor Code: When you identify a code smell, refactor the code to improve its design and implementation. Break long methods into smaller methods, also split large classes into smaller classes, simplify complex conditionals and move methods to the classes they belong to, create custom classes instead of using primitive data types, and eliminate shotgun surgery.
• Write Tests: Before refactoring your code just write test cases and test existing code first. This will help you catch regression.

Conclusion

Code smells are just signs that indicate when you need to refactor your code and when it must to refactored. There are multiple practices we can follow to make a smell-free code. Also, even if your code smells we have ways to fix them.