How To Keep Your Coding Organized And Make Life Easier For Yourself

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If you run a website or blog then you might not consider yourself to be a programmer – particularly that is if you run a blog in WordPress or in Blogger. However chances are in many cases that you will program to some degree even if you don’t think of yourself as someone who does – for instance you will probably have to deal with some basic HTML even if you run a WordPress blog if only to insert new lines and the like. At the same time, if you do take the effort to learn some programming you’ll find that this is an incredibly useful skill that enables you to give your site lots of new features, to make changes and tweaks. Meanwhile it will also help you to monetize your site in a number of different ways with mobile apps, Facebook apps, Java games and more. In other words I’m telling you that if you don’t code then you should. And now I’m about to give you a great little tip to help you do that better. So listen up.

Organization

Basically what I’m  advocating here is organization and simplicity in your code. I’m not talking about just making sure that you use indentations – in fact that’s not particularly important – rather I’m talking about naming your variables in a smart way, using subs and functions wherever possible and annotating, annotating, annotating.

I say this because I’ve recently been programming a lot making apps, and apps are a living embodiment of the iteration cycle – you release an app and then are able to update it on the fly in response to comments and reviews. It’s never ‘finished’ as such and you’re always adding to it and tweaking it which means the app you start making won’t necessarily be the one you finish off with or even resemble what you had planned.

In other words you will be adding new features, changing old features and altering things you aren’t planning on altering now and that’s why you need to keep things organized. Otherwise when your multifunctional app is capable of doing everything it will be impossible to understand the code when you come to it.

The same goes for your HTML and for your PHP – treat your code as though a child was reading it and annotate every single last detail and section it up in an obvious way. In other words where you have the code for your first menu, put an annotation at the top to say ‘MENU 1’ and at the bottom to say ‘MENU 1 END’. This way when you’re glancing at it you will instantly know what everything does and when the code gets long you can do a search for the ‘bookmark’ that you need. This also means that if you do hire web design or other experts to help you with your optimization etc., that they will intuitively be able to find their way around.

A Particular Kind of Refactoring

Refactoring is the art of reprogramming a code that already works pretty perfectly with the goal of making it work perfectly more efficient thus saving you on resources. However the kind of refactoring I’m interested in is refactoring for you. In other words that means coding in a way that makes adding new bits really easy. Have a series of grids on your front page that contain content? Then naming them grid1, grid2, grid3 means that in order to add six more you can simply copy and paste that code into notepad and replace ‘1’ for ‘4’ etc.

This will save you time, but more importantly it will enable you to do things on your site and in your other code that you otherwise just wouldn’t be able to get your head around.

Tom Koh is an avid blogger who writes informative articles when you buy website visitors internet marketing. 

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26 Comments

1. 

   Brenda Macalino

   December 6, 2012 at 5:52 am

   Hi there Mitz thanks for the info you share in here about that Organize, I’ve got something new Idea in here..
   Brenda Macalino recently posted..I’m Taking The DotComSecretsX 30 Day Challenge – Will You? (dofollow)

   Reply
2. 

   Phil V

   December 4, 2012 at 12:48 pm

   I wish more people code was organized as it should be.

   More often than not I fall on poorly written code which I can hardly follow. Everytime it happen I have to spend a lot of time to understand what is going on with variables and this lead to a lot of wasted time.

   Nice post!
   Phil V recently posted..Best vacuum for pet hair (dofollow)

   Reply
3. 

   Jimbo

   November 28, 2012 at 1:04 pm

   Good programming. And for me program refactoring is a better option if building a new software is too hard.
   Jimbo recently posted..Ll Bean Promotion Codes

   Reply
4. 

   Jayson

   November 10, 2012 at 3:17 pm

   I agree with you completely.
   making functions whenever possible is a good idea, but there are time that I find myself coding the other way around which may be because of my being newbie.
   Jayson recently posted..Dealing With Code 37 Error

   Reply
5. 

   nikol

   November 2, 2012 at 11:24 am

   That is a great idea. I will start doing something like that to be more organized.

   Reply
6. 

   Adam

   October 23, 2012 at 2:19 am

   Hi Mitz, another great article from you..! Recently i already use your plugin,.. Really great,.. Falling in love with SEO..
   Adam recently posted..Pakej Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Dengan DIGI,MAXIS, dan CELCOM

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7. 

   Adam

   October 22, 2012 at 5:20 am

   I think i should learn coding soon.. Really need to use it!
   Btw, thanks for the information dude!!
   =)
   Adam recently posted..Adele selamat melahirkan Bayi Lelaki

   Reply
8. 

   Gautham

   October 21, 2012 at 5:41 pm

   Organizing the code really makes your life easier. I had a big project with over 200k lines of code, i named the variable with some random alphabets, you know what, editing was going through hell, confused at every other line
   Gautham recently posted..8 Best Antivirus for Windows 7

   Reply
9. 

   vishvast

   October 21, 2012 at 12:02 pm

   hi mitz, thank you so much for sharing this awesome information, basically i do not have much information about coding, but i am thinking i should be learn coding
   vishvast recently posted..Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite Tablet (Silver, Wi-Fi, 3G)

   Reply
10. 

    Abhishek

    October 19, 2012 at 6:19 am

    I have no idea about coding, but yes I have 4 websites and I try to keep myself updated with the basic info in order to know what my programmers are upto, Thanks for this valuable info, Mitz.

    Reply
11. 

    George Mathew

    October 18, 2012 at 8:00 am

    First of all thanks for the stuff really helpful. Organized anything is really important it shows your neatness. Even when you organized your coding then it seems to be very professional which helpful for your business or professional growth. I am not savvy in commenting anything but whatever i feel i just shared here.

    Reply
12. 

    Maja

    October 17, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    In case of object oriented languages I always camel style indentations because of style my code is too organized.
    Maja recently posted..Massage at Hair Salons

    Reply
    • 

      mitz

      October 18, 2012 at 4:46 am

      Sounds like a good tip thanks Maja!

      Reply
13. 

    zoya

    October 17, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    hi mitz, thank you so much for sharing this awesome information, basically i do not have much information about coding, but i am thinking i should be learn coding
    zoya recently posted..Outfits Under $100 5 Stylish Looks for Fall on Campus

    Reply
14. 

    Jasmine

    October 17, 2012 at 7:38 am

    Good tips. In fact, good programmers always make it a habit to indent their code, user meaningful variable names (or follow their company’s naming convention), use subs or classes, document properly, and etc.

    This practice not only make life easier for the programmers himself, but makes life easier for whoever reading the codes later on!
    Jasmine recently posted..LunarPages $700 bonus software with web hosting (dofollow)

    Reply
    • 

      mitz

      October 18, 2012 at 4:47 am

      I am not too good at organising stuff like that.. but I know I have to ..

      Reply
15. 

    hira

    October 16, 2012 at 5:00 pm

    Anyone got any ideas on contructing and organising code librarys? ie a index of code snippets from javascript to php. I was thinking of putting my code library up on git, but right now its all over the place. Does anyone have any good ideas or tools that they use to organise their code library?
    hira recently posted..How To Cure Acne Naturally For Free

    Reply
16. 

    Sarah Mae Park

    October 16, 2012 at 1:32 pm

    Thank you so much for sharing this information. I actually do not have much patience in learning some basic programming because I always asked my partner to do this for me. Now, I realized it is not hard as I thought it was.
    Sarah Mae Park recently posted..5 Ways to Buy Smart and Get More for Less

    Reply
    • 

      mitz

      October 18, 2012 at 4:48 am

      It is nice to have someone to help you. I would not learn it if that is the case..

      Reply
17. 

    Javi

    October 16, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    It should say: ‘..make life easier for yourself, and others’!
    I used to be pretty casual about this, but over the years I’ve come across poorly-written code waayy too many times, and now I know better!
    Javi recently posted..Conversions and How to Convert Blog Visitors into Subscribers

    Reply
18. 

    Bhushan

    October 16, 2012 at 10:03 am

    Yes,We are at a point of website and want to share something then have to focus on that The coding should be in well mannered and i think should be simple.It gives a smart look.
    I Think Blogger does not have more knowledge then they should be ready to make a attention by developers.
    Thanks for the post on to make a bonus by that work.
    Bhushan recently posted..Client Management Software

    Reply
19. 

    Naina

    October 16, 2012 at 9:49 am

    Actually i don’t know much about coding thing but yes it should be simple and easy to interpret.
    Naina recently posted..Financial Accounting Software

    Reply
20. 

    Aditya

    October 16, 2012 at 6:47 am

    Coding a webpage and organizing it so that everyone can understand it easily should be the top most priority of developer.

    And for me refactoring a program is a better option if building a new program is not easy.
    Aditya recently posted..MLM Software in Noida

    Reply
21. 

    Nawaz

    October 16, 2012 at 2:11 am

    Good programming techniques.I am not expert programmer but always try to lean about web development. Searching on other web sites for quality code is good act and it is helpful in fast learning.

    Reply
22. 

    Lakhyajyoti

    October 15, 2012 at 5:24 pm

    Although I have been blogging for last two years, I don’t know any programming language. But after reading your post, I have changed my mind. Very soon I’ll start learning Java.
    Lakhyajyoti recently posted..Must Know Photoshop Shortcut Commands

    Reply

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