The Psychology of Quality and More

C Style: Standards and Guidelines (contents)

CHAPTER 1 : Standards

PART 1 : BASICS

CHAPTER 1 : Standards

1.1 Standards
1.2 Guidelines
1.3 What are standards for?
1.4 What are coding standards for?
1.5 Who are coding standards for?
1.6 Coding standards vs. programming standards
1.7 Using this book

1.8 Summary

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1.5 Who are coding standards for?

First and foremost, coding standards are for other people. They are for people in your programming team who must understand your code, perhaps in order to interface their code to it. They are for people who will check your code for you, helping to find bugs before the product is released. They are for people in the future who will have to fix your bugs. They are for people who must make your code work with a new compiler. They are for people who will change your code in order to enhance the product, adding extra features to it. They are for people who must port your code to other computers, where the compiler and libraries might be less advanced than your current tools.

Coding standards are also for you, the programmer. They help you to make decisions. They help to reduce the opportunity for error. They are a professional tool for you to use to help others. They help to give you the satisfaction, and recognition, of having written a clear and understandable program. They also help you to work with programs that others have written, as their style will match yours, making their programs easier to understand.

Even as a single programmer working alone, using standards can give a sense of professionalism and pride; of a job well done.

Standards are also for the organization. They help all of the above people to work more efficiently and reliably together, resulting in a higher quality product, produced in less time, and taking less effort to maintain in the future.

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