A common topic in my software engineering courses is: "How do I help my team increase the quality of our software?" There are several best practices we can use to reduce defects in our code and ensure that it has all the good "ilities" (Readability, Maintainability, Testability, etc). One of the easiest techniques is to create a Programming Standard document.
What Are The Benefits of Using a Programming Standard?
Many good things can happen when you draft up a programming standard. I think one of the best effects is that your team will start discussing best practices and quality. One or two people can create the document then present it to the group for discussion. If everyone starts abiding by the guidelines, it can add consistency to your code base, making it seem more like the work of one author. The person maintaining the code five years from now will love you for it.
Also, you may want to start doing code reviews at some point. Numerous studies show that finding and fixing defects early is much cheaper than discovering them after you release. Code reviews can help spot problems before you release to QA. If your team has already agreed on a programming standard, you can use it to evaluate code. The religious debates about curly brace placement will have already occurred, so you don't have to re-hash those discussions during each review.
How Do I Get Started?
My advice is to aim for a one or two page document. Break it up into a few sections (e.g. Naming Conventions, Comments, Error Handling). Include a brief description at the start of each section that explains why the topic is important. Try not to use too much strict language ("Thou shalt never...") and focus on general guidelines ("Avoid methods with more than X lines of code").
If you're looking for examples, the book Code Complete by Steve McConnell includes lots of checklist and well-researched rules.If you'd like to see the programming standard I created in class, send me a note.
Do you use a programming standard on your team? Is it helping?
