1. Tonga Institute of Higher Education
Code Conventions
Tonga Institute of Higher Education

2. What are Code Conventions?
Code Conventions are guidelines on how to write code.
They are rules for
File Organization
Code Width
Indentation
Declarations
Naming Conventions
Etc.

3. Why Have Code Conventions
Code conventions are important to programmers for a number of reasons:
Code conventions improve the readability of the software, allowing engineers to understand new code more quickly and thoroughly.
80% of the lifetime cost of a piece of software goes to maintenance. Hardly any software is maintained for its whole life by the original author.
If you ship your source code as a product, you need to make sure it is as well packaged and clean as any other product you create.
For code conventions to work, every person writing software must conform to the code conventions. Everyone.

4. What this means to you All homework must follow code conventions.
Points will be deducted if you do not follow code conventions.
I will not look at any code that does not follow code conventions.

5. File Organization
Source Code should be written in the following order:
Comment flowerbox.
Options Statements
Option Explicit, Option Strict, etc.
Import statements
Imports System.Text
Class Statements
Variables
Methods

6. Code Width
Avoid lines longer than 80 characters, since they're not handled well by many terminals and tools.
When an expression will not fit on a single line, break it according to these general principles:
Break after a comma.
Break before an operator.
Use the line-continuation sequence, which is a space followed by an underscore ( _), at the point at which you want the line to break.

7. Break after a comma myObject.myMethod(AReallyLongVariableName, _
Subsequent lines
use 1 tab

8. Break before an operator
Dim myString as String
myString = “Hello, there! Welcome to Sony’s Online” _
& “Video Center”
Break before
An operator
Subsequent lines
use 1 tab
Operator is first
part of line

9. Indentation Indent all code contained within a statement Sub… End Sub
Function… End Function
If… End If

10. Indent all code within brackets
This will help you debug your code
Easy to see
what is done
in a class
Easy to see
what is done
in a method
Easy to see
what is done in
the body of the If
statement

11. Declarations Initialize variables where they are declared.
The only reason not to initialize a variable where it's declared is if the initial value depends on some computation occurring first.

12. Naming Conventions Do not use spaces in your names
FindLastRecord
RedrawMyForm
Keep your names simple and descriptive
Customer
CheckInventory
Each separate word in a name begins with a capital letter:
Method names begin with a verb
InitNameArray
CloseDialog
Class and Property names begin with a noun
EmployeeName
CarAccessory

13. Naming Conventions - 2 Constants All uppercase
Words separated by underscores ("_").
Example
MIN_WIDTH
MAX_WIDTH
GET_THE_CPU

14. Different Conventions for Different Companies
Millions of people use code conventions
Different companies have different standards
The most important thing is to be consistent
Find Microsoft’s recommendations here: Msdn.microsoft.com