Maintainability in System Design

Last Updated : 11 Sep, 2023

Maintainability determines how easy and profitable it will be to maintain, update, and do upgrades in that software system. In this composition, we will understand the concept of maintainability in System Design, see how we can measure it, and bandy some stylish practices to achieve high maintainability as well.

Maintainablity

Introduction to Maintainability

Along with Scalability, trust ability, and Security, Maintainability is also a pivotal factor of a system software. further justifiable a system will be, the easier it'll be for inventors to make changes to it, and the more effective the system will be, the lower the time-out will be in case of an issue. A largely justifiable system contains the following characteristics:

Modularity: It's organized into different factors or modules, allowing maintainers to understand and modify individual pieces without affecting the rest of the system.
Readability: Its Codebase is clear, terse, and readable, making it easier for maintainers or other team members to understand and modify.
Error Handling: It's designed to handle problems or issues effectively, furnishing meaningful error dispatches and avoiding disastrous failures.
Utilizes VCS: It Utilizes VCS similar to Git for effective shadowing of changes and making collaboration easier.
Testability: It's effective in testability and helps in relating implicit issues snappily.

Measuring Maintainability

While measuring maintainability is subjective, here are some metrics to measure it: -

measuring-maintainability

Code Duplication

The percentage of duplicated code present in the system can be an indicator of maintainability. Code duplication occurs when the same or very similar code appears in multiple places within the system. In that case, changes made to one component of duplicated code may need to be applied to other areas too. Code duplication can be measured with static code analysis tools that identify duplicated code segments.

Maintainability Index

It provides an overall score that represents the maintainability of a specific component/Code module/Entire system. The formula for calculating the Maintainability Index varies depending upon the IDE you are using, it basically combines complexity, duplication, and other factors to produce a single value. Higher Maintainability Index scores indicate better maintainability and many people in tech use this metric to identify sections of the codebase that require enhancements.

Test Coverage

It measures the extent to which automated tests cover the codebase, It helps prevent regressions from being introduced. Test coverage tools assess the extent of code exercised by automated tests, expressed as a percentage.

Documentation

Good documentation reduces the learning curve for new Devs and helps the existing team understand it better during maintenance. A Good documentation is the one, which makes a newcomer understand the project and also covers not only code comments but also architectural decisions, System design, API references, as well.

Team Collaboration

A strong collaborative culture within the development team helps them share knowledge with each other, perform Knowledge Transfer programs (KT), mentor newcomers, and work together on maintenance tasks, it helps team members grow together and makes sure someone won't struggle in doing a particular task.

Time and Resource constraints

It's important to balance between speed of development as well as speed of maintainability. A rush by the development team to complete a tight deadline without considering maintainability can lead to complicated future maintenance efforts.

Code Churn

It measures the frequency of changes to a code module over time using Version Control's data. Active maintenance is essential for improvements and bug fixes, but excessive code churn may also indicate instability and the need for more thorough testing. By monitoring, focus areas of the system that may require more attention can be identified during maintenance.

Cyclomatic Complexity

It measures the complexity of a code module. Higher complexity is an indication that the code is more complicated to understand and there may be potential easier ways available to break the complexity of a particular code module.

How to achieve high Maintainability

Designing a highly maintainable system requires a proactive approach during the development process. Here are some strategies to achieve and improve maintainability in system design: -

achieving-high-maintainability

Follow Design Patterns:

Design patterns, such as Model-View-Controller and SOLID principles, promote modularity, and flexibility. Following these patterns enhances overall architecture while making it easier to maintain.

Code Consistency:

Well-written, readable code with meaningful variables, comments, and documentation makes maintenance tasks even smoother. So, as much as possible while writing code or documentation make it simple in design and implementation.

Conduct Code Reviews:

Code reviews by peers, and maintainers can help in identifying potential issues early on, while making sure that code adheres to maintainability standards and preferred code style or not.

Test-Driven Development (TDD):

Adopting TDD ensures that test cases are written before the code implementation, helping developers understand the codebase easily while troubleshooting an issue.

Documentation:

Good documentation reduces the learning curve for new Devs and helps the existing team understand it better during maintenance. Maintain thorough documentation of the system's architecture, APIs, modules, and dependencies.

Plan for Change:

Design the system in such a way, that makes it easier to add new features and adapt to evolving requirements of daily enhancements.

Automate Testing and Deployment:

Automating testing and deployment processes reduces the chance of human error helps maintain the stability of the system during updates and also saves time and effort of team members, allowing them to work on important issues.

Conclusion

Documentation, Team collaboration despite being underrated plays an important role in maintaining the system, while others may already be aware of the above-mentioned technical points, and other best practices. Many metrics and tools available can help you in the measurement of the system, but despite being underrated KT, Collaboration, and code reviews are among the best practices for achieving high maintainability.

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