The Psychology of Quality and More

C Style: Standards and Guidelines (contents)

CHAPTER 11 : Implementing Standards

PART 5 : IMPLEMENTATION

CHAPTER 11 : Implementing Standards
11.1 Raising awareness of the need for standards
11.2 'Disadvantages' of coding standards
11.3 Getting the standards defined
11.4 What should the standards contain?
11.5 Getting the standards into use
11.6 Prove the value
11.7 Keeping the standards alive
11.8 Making sure the standards are used
11.9 Summary

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For standards to really work well, the people who are using them should agree with them to the point that the standards are internalized, and they 'own' the standards and simply would not consider not using them.

This is, in practice, difficult (if not impossible) to achieve. However, with careful implementation of standards, it is possible to approach this ideal. If standards are sensible and explained well, then most people will agree with them and will attempt to use them properly.

So, let us imagine you are charged with defining a set of C programming standards and implementing them in a fairly large organization. This includes persuading a potentially rebellious group of programmers that they should change their current style and adopt your new standards. You do not, by the way, have any direct authority over them.

The rest of this chapter is based on the assumptions that you have the above problem. If your situation is different, then pick and match to build an implementation strategy to suit you.