There's nothing better than a delicious plate of spaghetti and nothing worse than spaghetti code. Normally, you want code that is simple and elegant, but spaghetti code is overly complicated, difficult to maintain and prone to bugs. Luckily, there are ways to keep spaghetti code off your programming plate.
The Problem with Spaghetti Code
Spaghetti code is most often created by programmers who lack knowledge or experience of a particular programming language. Rather than developing a feature in a manner that follows best practices, you may use methods that might make sense to you, but which are harder to maintain in the long-run.
With spaghetti code, the programming language jumps all over the place. Code is executed in places where it would normally not be expected to be and would be difficult for another programmer to follow. You may have to rely on memory for how your program is expected to function. If you leave your code for a long period and come back to it, you may struggle to make sense of your own code, especially without documentation or sufficient commenting.
Spaghetti code is easier to avoid due to programming languages that are object-oriented, but it can still be a problem even in these programming languages. Because the code jumps to other files often, you are forced to jump from one file to another to debug code. The code is also difficult to read because it is not broken up into conditional blocks.
How to Make Your Code Easier to Maintain
To keep your code under control, look for ways to better organize and structure it so it's easier to read. A lot of programs designed specifically to assist in writing code will structure it for you in a more readable format. For example, a block of code is harder to read than code that has spaces in-between. Code without indentation is harder to read when a programmer loses his or her spot when reading it.
When writing the code, make sure to place a comment above it that is descriptive of what this portion of code does, even if it seems obvious to you. Not only will comments explain the purpose of the code, but also help break it up into readable chunks. However, in some cases, it's impossible to break code up into sections. Regardless, you can learn effective techniques if you take a programming course or two.