CHAPTER 3 : General Principles

PART 1 : BASICS

CHAPTER 3 : General Principles

3.1 Keywords

3.2 Think of the reader

3.3 Keep it simple

3.4 Be explicit

3.5 Be consistent

3.6 Minimize scope

3.7 There's no one true style

3.8 A standard which isn't used, isn't a standard

3.9 Distinguish between standards and guidelines

3.10 Standards don't guarantee good coding

3.11 Decide on your portability quotient

3.12 Standards are a function of their audience

3.13 Keep project standards

3.14 Use standard libraries

3.15 Utilize available tools

3.16 Summary

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3.11 Decide on your portability quotient

Determining your level of portability is a major decision if there is any chance of your code being ported to other hardware or compilers (and this is more likely that you probably think!). If portability is a factor, then the coding standards will reflect this, focusing on the areas of the language where porting problems may occur (see 10.8).

Many of the suggestions in this book for doing (or not doing!) things are for reasons of portability. This is not, however, intended as a complete treatise on portability: see Appendix B for further reading in this area.

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