Code guidelines are very important when working within teams. You can be very loose with your guidelines or very strict. Think of it like XHTML or HTML. They both do the same thing at the end of the day.

We personally like to see a mixture of both. We think it’s important to keep things consistent but to keep evolving. Let your colleagues jump straight into your work and they know where they stand. Let them understand your code without having to learn your own naming conventions or how you have structured your website.

They say practice makes perfect so document that practice, keep that practice consistent across your work. Let others learn from your mistakes and allow yourself to learn from others. Code guidelines helps towards this. Whether it be naming conventions or the general layout, it all helps towards producing better code and in tern, better websites, it’s not just the developer that benefits from this ! People forget that consistent well structured code leads to a faster more consistent front-end.

Have a read through the following code guidelines from Github and make your own mind up on whether your company/self should use one. Why not amalgamate the bits you agree on and make your own, put it to the public on Github.

cssguidelin.es

css-tricks

github styleguide

s3rgiosan

silverstripe-ux

bloodyowl

necolas

Let us know your thoughts.

—

Update:

Ghost have now released the following.