Coding standards

The primary (good) reason for adopting a set of coding standards is to make it easier for developers to read and understand each other's code. Most of us have to maintain or at least step through code written by lot's of other people. If all those other people use different styles, a lot of time would be wasted just trying to decipher code that is not easy to understand. It is amazing how a few minor style differences can make reading code that much slower.

A major problem with coding standards is that they only make sense if applied consistently and that it's no fun remembering to apply them all the time while writing code, in practice this allways goes wrong in the long run.

The only coding standards that have a chance of being actually applied successfully (==consistently) are the one's that can be applied unobtrusively by automating them.

Code formatting

  • All java files in this project have been formatted with this eclipse formatting file If you are using eclipse and want to commit some Java, please import this file into eclipse using the "Window, Preferences, Java, Code Style, Formatter" dialog and format your java files (using ctrl-shift-F) before committing. If you are on another IDE or editor and want to commit some Java we first need to think about svn commit hooks before committing anything.
  • All xml files in this project ...TODO

The infamous LF/CR+LF problem

Because of this problem all files in this project follow the rules regarding Subversion properties specified in the SVN properties configuration page. Please follow the directions on that page before committing anything to this project.