Rules of Dev

These are the rules that I use while developing and creating tools, I have them written and kept updating them along my years of developing (since 1997), I want to document them and remind myself of them every now and then.
Rules of dev work I follow as time (and budget) permits:

Keep developing

If you keep trying to make tool better, you will not deliver. Make tool smaller to deliver sooner. Develop other features later and have plans for next release.

Dec 6th'23

Separate tool from Data

Did not think I need to add this one, but looks like lots and lots of developers are not considering this, it might be because most of current tools are inheritance of Access-DB-Based tools, where you have the data and the tool in one location. Anyways, SEPARATE.

Nov 4th'23

Microsoft Own Best Practices

Found a page about this exact subject Excel VBA Performance Coding Best Practices.

Feb 23rd'23

Programmer ≠ Tester

If you program, do not test; if you test, do not program. Yes, programmer does need to test their code, but that testing is not a replacement of user testing.

Jan 13th'23

User 1st

Seek what is best for user not Programmer. Programmer does need to go the extra mile to make user's life easier. Hate to see those programmers who chose to do certain things the easy way, because it was easier for them.

Feb 25th'22

User-driven UI

User is the final judge, the tool has to be organized, or structured from user perspective, not developer perspective. (more on that later)

Feb 7th'20

Min hardcoded

Minimum hard-coded variables, try to use settings table to allow user to change when needed.

Feb 22nd'22

Only perfect is good

If it is not 100% perfect, it is not acceptable. Only the best solution is good enough.

Feb 7th'20

Smaller = better

Use smaller subroutines or functions, the smaller the better. long subs means bad coding.

Jan 29th'22

Always-Subs

If need to use code more than once, then move it to function or another sub, do not have more than one place for same code.

Feb 7th'20

Always-Variables

If a string or number needed to be used more than once, the use variable, or constant.

Feb 7th'20

Tab = 3

Tab used in alignment is 3 spaces tab

Dec 6th'20

Align, align, align

Alignments to show flow of loops, ifs, withs, etc..

Feb 7th'20

25 spaces

In a statement of LET make sure you had the equal sign at character 25 (mainly in Notepad++ ASP language)

Dec 6th'20


From /Assets/Page-RulesofDev.txt