Optimal Coder

Code reviews are a crucial part of writing great software. They help maintain code quality, catch bugs early, and improve collaboration. But if done poorly, they can be frustrating, time-consuming, and even demotivating. So, how do you make your code reviews effective and useful? What to Do? 1. Prioritize Code Quality and Maintainability Make sure the code follows best practices and style guidelines. Check for ways to improve performance and efficiency. Ensure the code is easy to read and well-structured. 2. Give Constructive, Respectful Feedback Focus on helping, not just pointing out mistakes. Offer suggestions rather than just criticism. Highlight things that were done well, not just areas that need improvement. 3. Ensure the Code is Properly Tested Look for unit tests and integration tests where needed. Check for edge cases and possible failure points. Make sure tests actually pass before approving the PR. 4. Look Out for Security and Performance Issues Watch for common security ri...

Dapper is a lightweight, high-performance ORM for .NET. It is widely used because of its simplicity and speed. Dapper in its essence provides simple mapping to POCO and works with raw queries minimizing the overhead. On the other hand it lacks of flexibility in terms of query writing, because we need to write queries like static strings. One simple example is shown in the code snippet below. using System; using System.Data.SqlClient; using Dapper; class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { using (var connection = new SqlConnection("connection_string")) { connection.Open(); string sql = "SELECT * FROM Companies"; var companies = connection.Query<Company>(sql); } } } With the lack of flexibility in query construction, we would be in temptation to go for Entity Framework or some other heavy weight ORM, but there is also a simple library ( SqlKata ) which provides a decent flexibil...

This is also, like a Singleton , one of the creational design patterns. It provides the way of creating complex objects step by step by simple chaining and every particular step is independent of other steps. Let us dive into the real example of usage. For showing purpose we have created an example in C# which creates simple SQL queries using described pattern.  using System; using System.Text; namespace BuilderPatternExample { public interface ISqlQueryBuilder { ISqlQueryBuilder Select(string columns); ISqlQueryBuilder From(string table); ISqlQueryBuilder Where(string condition); ISqlQueryBuilder OrderBy(string columns); string Build(); } public class SelectQueryBuilder : ISqlQueryBuilder { private readonly StringBuilder _queryBuilder; public SelectQueryBuilder() { _queryBuilder = new StringBuilder(); } public ISqlQueryBuilder Select(string columns) { ...

 A well-maintained Git log is more than just a record of commits—it’s a story of your project’s growth, collaboration, and problem-solving. But as projects scale and teams grow, Git logs can become cluttered, making it harder to trace changes, understand context, or troubleshoot issues. In this post, we’ll explore strategies to make your Git log more readable, structured, and useful—because a great Git log isn’t just good practice; it’s a competitive advantage. Simple Merging Let's kick off with a simple merging strategy, the one we are all probably most familiar with. For simplification purposes, let's assume we have one main branch that represents the current development branch. Every team member creates their own branch when they want to work on a specific feature and continues working on that feature branch until it is finished. Once it's done, they merge their feature branch into the main branch, and all their work is integrated into the main branch. Then, they can mov...

Undoubtedly, one of the most popular books in software engineering, it teaches the fundamentals of software architecture, methods for organizing code, and is widely regarded as a must-read for any software developer. Written by Robert C. Martin, also known as "Uncle Bob," the full title of the book is " Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship ". Key Takeaways The book emphasizes a few important topics to pay attention to: Readability: The code should be written in a meaningful manner that is easy to read and understand. It emphasizes the importance of simple, short, clear naming for variables, functions/methods, classes, and other structures for code organization (folders, namespaces, packages), as well as maintaining consistency in naming throughout the application. This also reduces the need to write comments in the code, as the code itself should be self-explanatory. Additionally, it's important to avoid using global variables, as they often i...

Tyipically the first design pattern most people learn, often wrongly ☺ To give an introduction, we can say that singleton is one of the creational design patterns which ensures only one class instance with single point of access thru entire application.  Because it is relatively simple to implement, the Singleton pattern is sometimes misapplied in situations where it is not the most suitable choice. When to use it? Here are the few examples of corrent usage of singleton: Configuration Management  Centralized configuration settings for consistent use thru entire application Caching Maintaning  Single istance of cached objects for easy and fast acces Logging  Ensure unified mechanism to avoid duplication of log files, formats, etc Global State Management  Centralized management of the state which is needed to be shared accross the application Resource sharing  Thread pools, database connection, I/O operations When not to use it? On the other hand, here are fe...