Coding Practice

Question

This is coding practices for the very beginner. These are random things that are good habits for new coders to pick up. None of these practices are mandatory but will help you and other people read your sources.
-If you have more good coding practices tell me and I will add them to this post!

1. Using a Name Prefix: When naming each of your controls it is always a good coding practice to give them a prefix and then name them according to what they do
(or a lot of the time their 'text' name). The prefix is always all lowercase letters. This helps you remember exactly what you are coding when you use your control.


Common Controls and Prefixes:
-Button = btn
-ComboBox = cbo
-CheckBox = chk
-Label = lbl
-ListBox = lst
-RadioButton = rdb
-PictureBox = pic
-TextBox = txt

Examples (if you don't get the idea):
-btnExit
-cboEmailProvider
-chkPasswordShow
-lblStatus
-lstFriends
ect

2. Using White Space and Grouping: Coders use white space to make their code easier to read and also organize it. Also, group things that have to do with eachother.

Bad:
[code]
dim string1 as string = textbox1.text
dim string2 as string = textbox2.text
dim int1 as integer = numericupdown1.value
if string1.contains("blah") then
messagebox.show("blah")
else
end if
if int1=12 then
messagebox.show("int1 = 12")
else
end if
if string2.contains("flubble") then
messagebox.show("flubble")
else
end if
[/code]

Good:
[code]
dim string1 as string = textbox1.text

if string1.contains("blah") then
messagebox.show("blah")
else
end if

dim string2 as string = textbox2.text

if string2.contains("flubble") then
messagebox.show("flubble")
else
end if

dim int1 as integer = numericupdown1.value

if int1=12 then
messagebox.show("int1 = 12")
else
end if
[/code]

3. Comment things that may be confusing. Put a single quotation mark to start a comment (') and it will comment everything on the same line out. Use this for adding notes to your projects!

Commented Code (these are self explanatory but always useful with complex code):

[code]
'Define String1 as a string to find the length of later
dim string1 as string = textbox1.text

'Find the last 3 characters of string1 and show them in a messagebox to the user
MessageBox.Show(string1.Substring(string1.Length—3)
[/code]