Best Practices for Software Programming Self-Study Course

Best Practices for Software Programming will outline the best practices for writing high quality methods, expressions, variables, arrays, loops, and if statements, and will describe recommended practices for writing readable code.
Audience

• Developer

Course Topics General Coding Best Practices

• Recognize techniques for enhancing program readability in a give scenario
• Determine an appropriate comment for a given piece of code
• Recognize code readability standards
• Recognize breaches of best practice guidelines for writing expressions and ordering lines of code
• Recognize whether given examples comply with best practice guidelines for using types, arrays, variables, and alternatives to hard-coded values
• Recognize whether given examples comply with well-structured flow control best practice guidelines
• Determine suitable structuring solutions to improve given code examples
• Recognize ways to improve a given method

Maintaining Quality Code

• Recognize symptoms of code issues that require refactoring
• Recognize suitable situations for applying different refactoring techniques
• Recognize the guidelines for performing inspections of code
• Identify steps to minimize programming bugs in code
• Identify the recommended practices for testing and debugging
• Identify suitable steps to include in code maintenance processes

Object-oriented Coding Best Practices

• Recognize whither a given class complies with best practice guidelines for abstraction and encapsulation
• Recognize best practices for using constructors and destructors, and creating objects
• Identify steps to make a class immutable and recognize examples of uses for static classes
• Determine appropriate class designs for a given scenario
• Recognize how best to implement inheritance
• Assess whether appropriate class relationships have been used in given scenarios, and determine more suitable ones
• Identify a suitable method for defining relationships between classes in a given scenario

Programming Techniquest and Strategies

• Recognize examples of strategies and tasks for minimizing software complexity
• Identify the characteristics of egoless programming
• Recognize the software quality attributes for a given software application
• Recognize the benefits of structured programming, OOP, and design by contract
• Distinguish between examples of defensive programming techniques
• Identify the main tenets of Extreme Programming
• Recognize project implementations that are compatible with agile and defensive programming strategies

Course Objectives

• Outline best practices for writing high quality methods, expressions, variables, arrays, loops, and if statements
• Describe recommended practices for writing readable code
• Outline the primary techniquest of refactoring, and discuss best practices for reviewing, testing, and debugging code
• Outline best practices for defining and using classes, and determine how best to use inheritance or its alternatives
• Outline high-level considerations for producing good code