For this weeks blog post I will be looking at an Antipattern known as Spaghetti Code from Source Makings site. Perhaps the most famous AntiPattern it has existed in one form or another since the advent of monogramming languages. Essentially Spaghetti Code is a very cluttered or messy design approach causing it to appear almost like spaghetti, all tangled up.
Nonobject oriented languages appear to be more susceptible to this, and this is more likely to occur to those who have yet to fully master advanced concepts involving object orientation. The general form of this spaghetti code appears in systems with very little software structure. “If developed using an object-oriented language the software may include a small number of objects that contain methods with very large implementations that invoke a single, multistage process flow. “. On top of this object methods are invoked in a very predictable manner, with a negligible degree of dynamic interaction between any of the objects involved in the system. Causing the system to be very difficult to maintain or extend, allowing no opportunity to reuse the objects and modules in other similar systems. Spaghetti Code usually results in an inexperience with object oriented design technologies, similar to this no design prior to the implementation of the actual code. Another cause would be the result of developers working in isolation because of this their maybe ineffective code reviews.
A solution to this not so delicious mess would be through software refractoring (code clean up). This being an essential part of software development, allowing most efficient clean up. When the structure becomes “compromised” through the mess its support to extensions become more and more limited to the point of useless. Ideally code cleanup should be happening throughout the entire development process but that’s an ideal situation that not everyone (including myself) follow all the time. Doing so on an hourly or daily basis is a good start to this cleanup process.
If simple code clean up is not working what next? Stopping spaghetti code through prevention is usually the best way to resolve this matter. Before you start writing the code, have a plan of what you are designing and how to structure it. Commit to actively refractoring and improving spaghetti code whenever the code needs to be modified is an extremely useful to prevent it.
Essentially if you don’t want to have spaghetti and meatball code you need to think about the overall structure and a good idea of what you are going to be developing.
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