style

Style

A guide for programming in style.

In addition to the general guidelines below, we also have the following more detailed, language/framework-specific style guides:

• Android
• Git
• HTML
• JavaScript
• Python
• Rails
• Ruby
• Sass
• Swift
• Testing

Formatting

• Avoid inline comments.
• Break long lines after 80 characters.
• Delete trailing whitespace.
• Don't include spaces after (, [ or before ], ).
• Don't misspell.
• Don't vertically align tokens on consecutive lines.
• If you break up a hash, keep the elements on their own lines and closing curly brace on its own line.
• Indent continued lines two spaces.
• Indent private methods equal to public methods.
• If you break up a chain of method invocations, keep each method invocation on its own line. Place the . at the end of each line, except the last. Example.
• Use 2 space indentation (no tabs).
• Use an empty line between methods.
• Use empty lines around multi-line blocks.
• Use spaces around operators, except for unary operators, such as !.
• Use spaces after commas, after colons and semicolons, around { and before }.
• Use Unix-style line endings (\n).
• Use uppercase for SQL key words and lowercase for SQL identifiers.

Naming

• Avoid abbreviations.
• Avoid object types in names (user_array, email_method CalculatorClass, ReportModule).
• Prefer naming classes after domain concepts rather than patterns they implement (e.g. Guest vs NullUser, CachedRequest vs RequestDecorator).
• Name the enumeration parameter the singular of the collection.
• Name variables created by a factory after the factory (user_factory creates user).
• Name variables, methods, and classes to reveal intent.
• Treat acronyms as words in names (XmlHttpRequest not XMLHTTPRequest), even if the acronym is the entire name (class Html not class HTML).
• Suffix variables holding a factory with _factory (user_factory).

Organization

• Order methods so that caller methods are earlier in the file than the methods they call.
• Order methods so that methods are as close as possible to other methods they call.