Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft

Chapter 14. Managing Your Code

The term spaghetti code was coined to define code that looks like a snarled mess. It is no wonder that some code is messy because the software industry has set no standards for code writing, nor do many college curriculums teach how to write code.

In part, this might be because programmers can’t even agree on what constitutes good code or bad code. I wrote my first code in 1978, but I began programming professionally in 1987. In 12 years, I have seen everything in production from poorly written code—written by both professional programmers and college students—to some of the best code in the world. I have adopted strategies based on what I have learned from both kinds of code and techniques deemed to be best practices ...