Good coding standards makes it so you can find code faster, read and understand it easily, and increase reusability. One hour of forethought and planning can prevent literally hundreds of hours of unnecessary upkeep, straining for interpretation, and possible future bugs.
“Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.”
— John Woods
Goals of Coding Standards / Naming Conventions
- Readability
- Text Searching
- Consistency
- Reusability
Coding Time
“Indeed, the ratio of time spent reading versus writing is well over ten to one. We are constantly reading old code as part of the effort to write new code. …[Therefore,] making it easy to read makes it easier to write.”
― Robert C. Martin
Robert C. Martin is an American software engineer, instructor, and best-selling author. He is most recognized for developing many software design principles and for being a founder of the influential Agile Manifesto.
If he's correct about how much time is wasted reading code, then as software developers it should be our utmost goal to improve our methodologies in order to fix this issue.
Imagine having to work 11 hours and knowing 10 of those hours will be reading and deciphering code so you can do one hour of coding and inserting it into the proper locations. If Coding Standards and Naming Conventions are strictly adhered to it is completely possible to change that so in an 8 hour day you spend only 4 hours reading code and the other 4 hours actually coding. Work 3 hours less and be 4 times more productive!
Free PDF download plus link to the Programming Labs standards available at:
Coding Standards and Naming Convention
“Weeks of coding can save you hours of planning.”
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