Over the last 15 or so years, I have learned many things about writing code; about documenting code; and, about providing support for this same code, too.
Coding Standards
When writing code, I make every effort to keep a consistently structured format with the use of white-space, tabs, etc. This helps to provide clear delineation of code elements and structures, but more so it provides easier to read code. If code is easy to read, it is easier to understand.
In my opinion, this is a hallmark of quality code. I cannot recommend strongly enough how important it is to keep a project’s code consistently structured, formatted, and documented. If this is not consistent, it could easily give an impression the project itself is not consistent … or worse, flawed?! It’s also much easier to edit well structured code.
My structuring convention, since I tend to focus on WordPress related projects, is very similar to the coding standard documented on their codex page: WordPress Coding Standards.
A project’s code should also implement a consistent version number convention. This can be as simple or detailed as you want but I would recommend it also have its own explanatory documentation.
For example, a recent article I read regarding the Semantic Versioning Specification provides “a simple set of rules and requirements that dictate how version numbers are assigned and incremented.” I’ll likely be adopting this, or a very similar specification for my projects.
Another important coding standard is using a consistent naming convention:
In computer programming, a naming convention is a set of rules for choosing the character sequence to be used for identifiers which denote variables, types and functions etc. in source code and documentation.
Wikipedia – Naming Conventions (programming)
The keys to quality coding standards are these:
- adopting and/or creating documented specifications; and,
- being consistent in how they are applied.
