Pseudocode: A secret weapon to improve code efficiency

Recently, Yonatan Doron published an article on Medium titled "The Art of Code - Why You Should Write More Pseudocode". As a fan of pseudo-code, I really like this title. Pseudocode refers to "code" that describes what you want to do or what you want to communicate with, but it does not belong to any particular language and does not use any correct API or other content.

Writing annotated pseudo-code helps organize ideas, boost motivation, and plan expected code results in advance. That way, when we start writing code, we always have this mind map or framework to help us focus and improve efficiency.

Jeremy Keith once compared it to writing a script:

"When a user submits a form, a modal dialog box with confirmation information is displayed." Then he encourages everyone to write a script...but I am not referring to scripts in the JavaScript sense; Write down each step you want to complete. Once done, translate every line of script you wrote in English (or Portuguese) into JavaScript.

I see educators using this technology time and time again. But it’s not just for teachers to use and students to learn – it goes a long way toward anyone. I find myself writing pseudo-code before writing real code, and of course, sometimes I keep it in code comments. Most commonly, I use it in Notion documentation or Slack conversations to express my point of view.

Even simple ideas:

<code>如果env.dev停止郵件投遞</code>

Anything that has logic and branching or step-by-step operations will benefit greatly from it. Please note that this code is not a valid code. It doesn't work in any language I can think of. Sometimes, I will add some brackets or semicolons casually out of muscle memory. Who cares? It's just about communicating ideas with yourself or others.

<code>如果（支持網(wǎng)格）使用網(wǎng)格否則使用flexbox將內(nèi)容布局在基本行中</code>

This is very natural. They probably won't care about grammar, they will only understand what it means.

<code>在表單提交時驗證如果存在錯誤顯示錯誤；否則提交到api；如果api成功顯示ui成功；否則顯示ui失敗；</code>

(After writing this, it reminds me of uilang. See how the plain text code blocks work there.)

Yonatan's article lacks real pseudo-code examples, so I asked around. Check out these great examples!

My entire notebook is pseudo-code...

These are converted to comments before starting to encode so that I can know what I'm doing and what pictures I've made afterwards. twitter.com/9vfJYfweDh

— Ruth John (@Rumyra) May 28, 2019

Whiteboards are great for writing pseudo-code as well as adding graphics. picture. twitter.com/56FUu4rhmU

— norom (@_norom_) May 28, 2019

Oh, I used to do this...pictures. twitter.com/lQi4Y8RhwP

— Ben Koppenens (@bkoppenens) May 28, 2019

Always use it! picture. twitter.com/YFVVNwls5M

— Bryan (@iamBryanSanders) May 28, 2019

Trying to use both JavaScript and php can sometimes be a bit tricky picture. twitter.com/Xp0bQyV86D

— frankie | webdev (@azoicx) May 29, 2019

Belated join. Quick script mapping. picture. twitter.com/n1kYDxKgya

— Adam Styles (@thelibstyles) May 31, 2019

I was surprised how much pseudo-code is written on paper! This is really cool. It's a little weird for me because I rarely do anything with paper. I probably should.

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