The Style Guide As An Instruction Tool For Structured Programming

Structured programming skills are a must for anyone writing computer software. This paper will present to the reader the concept of the style guide as a tool for insuring structured programming skills are developed by both novice and experienced programmers. A style guide is normally a written document, either hard copy or on-line, that provides rules for formatting, documenting, variable naming and other important skills that are required for insuring written code is readable, reusable and maintainable. One style guide is not suitable for all programming languages and therefore each language will normally have it’s own style guide covering a standard set of topics. Topics of the paper are a detailed description of a style guide, how to develop a sound style guide, introduction of the style guide concepts through visual examples and methods of enforcement in the class room environment.