While writing the post on code reviews, it occurred to me that I could also write about the things I look at while doing it and provide you with a checklist that you could use to perform your own reviews. I will try to explain why I find each of these points important, but you can use or modify the list however it suits you.
So, without further ado, here is the list.
Before I dwell into practices that I find useful for improving the code readability, I would like to describe one of my favorite tools for keeping the code clean – code reviews. While it may seem cumbersome and overhead to some, having someone else to have a look at your master piece, you will be surprised how many different things one can find in it. The reviewer might point out to some things that you might’ve overlooked or forgotten, or even point out to a better way to implement a feature, or a piece of it. For example, in the simplest case, a reviewer could have a better knowledge of the source code of the system, or part of it. During the review, he can point it out for you that a method that does exactly the same thing already exists, so that you can remove it. Even better, you could analyze both methods, choose a better implementation, and remove the other one. You know the saying: “Less code, less bugs.“?