Coding Guidelines, the Gist
Post from January 13, 2016 (↻ October 1, 2022), filed under Web Development (feed).
Coding guidelines govern how we write code.
Coding guidelines directly help consistency, and through that, indirectly, impact [code] usability, collaboration, and maintainability.
Coding guidelines are important.
The main ingredients of a coding guideline are: what (not) to do within a particular scope, examples, and an explanation.
Coding guidelines can deal with preference or with quality.
Coding guidelines can be descriptive, prescriptive, or both.
Coding guidelines must be communicated, enforced and reviewed.
And, there are some solid coding guidelines out there.
More: The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines (still brand-new, and still free)!
About Me

I’m Jens, and I’m an engineering lead and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead for Google, I’m close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for O’Reilly. I love trying things, sometimes including philosophy, art, and adventure. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.
If you have a question or suggestion about what I write, please leave a comment (if available) or a message. Thank you!
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