good programming practices rules every programmer should know and follow
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Good Programming Practices
rules every programmer should know and follow.
Documentation
• Comment your code such that it is clear what you code does
• You should be able to figure out your code years after it’s written
• A good programmer should be able to figure out what your code does from your comments.
• Scheme comments start with ; ;this is a comment ;this is another comment
Documenting a procedure
Include:1. A description of what the procedure does
2. Type of arguments -> type of return value
3. Constraints that need to be satisfied by arguments (requires clause)
4. Expected state of computation at key states
You should also include notes on what a particular chunk of code does if it may be confusing to a reader.
Documenting a procedure
• Example:
Documenting an ADT
• Whenever you make an ADT, you should include some comments giving an overview of the ADT
• You should describe each sub-unit of the ADT, including the type of the sub-unit
Documenting an ADT
• Example:
Debugging: Using Test Cases
• Whenever you make a procedure, you should write tests for it.– Test the procedure on limits of legal values– Test the procedure with arguments that
span legal values– Include a comment with each test case
indicating what you are testing
Debugging: Useful techniques
• Sometimes, you can use display or print to print out values of your variables at key stages of computation
• Useful for isolating problem spots• In Dr. Scheme, debugger is useful for
checking values of variable in the middle of a computation.