Coding Guidleines – how do you do yours?

Having looked at different code bases this past 3 weeks, one thing springs to mind, if you use StyleCop use it in a way where all projects are consistent, no point having only a few rules if the code base can compile but look entirely different project to project, be much nicer for a new start to open up 3 or 4 solutions and they all look fairly similar in layout, same naming conventions etc.

What I am getting it really is if you have coding standards how do you enforce them?, oh such a strong words brings terror to co-workers opinions on writing code, but with a little bit of discipline you may be surprised when you look at someone else’s project and the code looks very similar to yours as they are sharing the teams ReSharper and StyleCop settings.

Here is a list of a few things which I think can improve code quality

• Remove all use of regions
• If you have coding guidelines – use tools to enforce them otherwise what’s the point
• Put Using statements in alphabetical order at the top of the file
• Naming conventions for your code/test projects – check these in code reviews.

So does your company have coding standards?, and if so how do you go about implementing them?, are they enforced? if not why not? – no need to piss developers off, in time they should see the light and you can shape your StyleCop rules etc. to fit.

I still bet out in the wild many teams have a coding standards guide yet they don’t enforce it other than the odd glance if your lucky.