Qualities of Good Software Developer

Similar to any other domain of aesthetics, Software Engineering is also an art of transforming the requirements of a user into an automated program. The customized program can then abstract all the technical processes behind a user interface window and compute the desired solution against the input provided by the user. However, for a software programmer or software developer, coding the application is not the actual job. A software developer assists in reducing the computing time that a user spends on any activity and if the coded program does not reduce it significantly, there is no use of developing software for that requirement. This difference creates a partition between a software developer and good software developer when a software program is coded according to the requirement of the end user and at the same time provides the best possible solution for the case. Various other practices which generally a good and successful software developer follows are:

• A good software developer always plans before starting the coding operation. A proper planning is a mix of experience of the developer on coding and thinking about an optimum route to impart functionality for the application. A brief outline in the mind of developer helps in segmenting the task into small sub-tasks which become easy to develop.
• Similar to the concept of defect clustering in software testing, in a developer's point of view similar tasks can be clubbed together so as to save the time of development due to repetitive operations. However, libraries assist in doing the same, but for tasks repeating at the project level, grouping together of those modules or tasks is a great technique to remove the redundancy in efforts.
• Code optimization is highly recommended for a high performance software product. Execution speed, Memory consumption, size of executable, remote service access etc. are some measuring metrics of an optimized code. The value of each parameter as "high" or "low" is crucially important for the efficiency of a program and is dependent on the approach of software developer.
• Testing the application, critically, is an integral practice of a successful software developer. Though a dedicated team or department is deployed for doing the same however, the unit level testing can still be conducted at developer's end. Cross checking the coded application for a better approach helps a developer to groom their skills in developing an application.
• The operation of documenting the strategy and approach of development projects a more professional perspective of a developer's personality. Documentation includes adding the comments within the code and also in a separate document which assists the work of other developers in case the project is handed over to them.

Deleting the unused line of codes is a better solution over commenting them out as it reduces the unnecessary load on memory to load the part of code which would never be used for any functionality. This further optimizes the code and is advisable to developers. -- Christa Joe is a keen blogger and enjoys reading and writing about the recent technology like Big data. Software development, Social media, mobile software development and smartphone applications are some of her key area of interests. She's also a freelance writer and write for various companies like Q3 technologies. Follow her at Twitter. Source: http://www.articletrader.com