1# Thrift Coding Standards
2
3   Any fool can write code that a computer can understand.
4   Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
5                                  -- Martin Fowler, 1999
6
7The purpose of this document is to make everyone's life easier.
8
9It's easier when you read good, well-formatted, with a clearly defined purpose, code.
10But the only way to read clean code is to write such.
11
12This document can help achieve that, but keep in mind that
13those are not silver-bullet, fix-all-at-once rules. Just think about readability while writing code.
14Write code like you would have to read it ten years from now.
15
16## General Coding Standards
17
18Thrift has some history. Not all existing code follows those rules.
19But we want to improve over time.
20When making a small change / bugfix - like a single line fix - do *not* refactor the whole function.
21That disturbs code repository history.
22Whenever adding something new and / or making bigger refactoring
23 - follow those rules as strictly as you can.
24
25When in doubt - contact other developers (using dev@ mailing list or IRC).
26Code review is the best way to improve readability.
27
28### Basics
29 * Use spaces, not tabs
30 * Use only ASCII characters in file and directory names
31 * Commit to the repository using Unix-style line endings (LF)
32     On Windows:
33       git config core.autocrlf true
34 * Maximum line width - 100 characters
35 * If not specified otherwise in language specific standard - use 2 spaces as indent/tab
36
37### Comments
38 * Each file has to start with a comment containing [Apache License](http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
39 * Public API of a library should be documented, preferably using format native for language-specific documentation generation tools (Javadoc, Doxygen etc.)
40 * Other comments are discouraged - comments are lies. When one has to make comment it means one failed to write readable code. Instead of "I should write a comment here" think "I should clean it up"
41 * Do not leave "TODO/FIXME" comments - file [Jira](http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/THRIFT) issue instead
42
43### Naming
44 Finding proper names is the most important and most difficult task in software development.
45
46## Language-Specific Coding Standards
47
48For detailed information see `lib/LANG/coding_standards.md`
49