Nearly everyone is familiar with Murphy’s Law, the adage that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It is a hyperbolic statement; there are many scenarios with a minute chance of actually occurring. However, bad things do happen to good developers, and you can avoid losing your job, your project, or your life, with enough precaution.

I compiled a few lifesaving tips for developers. Please add your own in the comments!

Avoid code that elicits “Hey ya’ll, watch this!”

I love testing the boundaries of languages and tools, but weird code constructs typically do not belong in professional software. If you’re glitching the system to achieve a result, you run the risk that the glitch will be fixed. Even if it isn’t fixed, it’s unlikely that future developers will be able to maintain the oddball code.

Expect the worst: your code may actually create a difficult to locate bug that prevents the software from working properly if at all.

Use version control

When I began programming professionally in the late nineties, sneakernet was a common way to share source code with other developers. Many developers stored versions of their programs’ source in zip files, and merging code was quite a task.

We have come a long way since those dark days, but there are a surprising number of development shops depending on simple file shares.

Even cowboy developers should use a version control system. If someone tosses your computer out the window, or you need an older version of the source code, version control systems make it easy to recover. Of course, you do need to make sure the server is running on a separate system.

It’s the twenty-tweens, and there is no excuse not to use version control. There are plenty of flavors of free systems and tooling to match.

Back up essential resources

Everything essential to recreate your project should go into version control, and you should implement a regular backup schedule.

Prepare for the worst! Backups should be stored on premises separate from the server. An extinction-sized meteor may not hit your building, but fires and other catastrophes do happen.

When all else fails, use a decompiler

The systems administrator mistakenly deleted your version control server, and no one bothered testing the backups to make sure they worked. You’ve lost everything, and the future is bleak.

Instead of rewriting everything, use a decompiler to recover your code. The source will not be a one-to-one comparison, but it’s better to start at 90% than 0%.

If you’re a .NET developer, try out JustDecompile. It can generate complete projects from a .dll or .exe.

Identify and fix performance issues

You may have the superior product, feature-wise, but if it performs poorly, users will abandon it for the competition. Fewer users mean less revenue, and less revenue means you may soon be out of a job.

Application performance issues come in many shapes and sizes, and they cost users tons of time. Use a .NET profiler such as JustTrace to identify the best target for optimization.

Fix the perception

A long running but optimized task gives the perception of poor performance if the user is not receiving feedback. Be sure to use asynchronous calls for calls that may run long. No matter what, avoid locking the user interface.

Clean up unmanaged resources

There are many ways to mismanage memory in a .NET application, but you’re at least guaranteed to recover the memory by closing the application. Well, not quite. It is possible to create a true memory leak with unmanaged resources. Even if the unmanaged resource didn’t leak, improper handling of unmanaged resources will cause memory usage to grow during the life of the application.

Do the right thing and clean up unmanaged resources. Release them in finally blocks or by using the disposable pattern.

If your application is unstable due to out of control memory usage, use a memory profiler to identify the culprit. JustTrace does that, too.

More tips?

Depending on your industry and the type of application you are creating, there are many more tips to consider. Please add your own tips in the comments.

Here’s one final tip: don’t be evil.

Chris has saved a project or two, but he will not say whether he has saved any lives. After all, non-disclosure agreements are binding.