Development and Documentation standards are something I've been pushing my customers to use consistently for as long as I can remember. Inevitably a situation occurs that leaves one or both of these things addressed poorly. So moving forward with my own "take over the world" project, why should I not follow my own advice.
I have several development efforts that I would like to get under way, why not develop my own standards and push to use those moving forward.
Although I think that some of the existing standard efforts that are in use with open source projects are nice, I've often found myself reading through code segments and scratching my head. I've been programming since I was a little kid on an apple IIe - which is as long as anyone in my generation, but that doesn't mean that I know everything. Heck, I sometimes look at my own code and wonder what exactly my thought process was.
So moving forward, I'm setting the following goals for myself -
Use consistent database structures and naming conventions accross all development efforts. Document those naming conventions along the way.
Document both inline, and externally with the tools I would use to produce client documentation - word, visio, vector drawing applications, etc. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to buy flashpaper now.
Document requirements before I code, and publish code with reasonable goals in mind. (i.e. don't try to solve all the worlds problems before I let other people play around with things).
Documentation Standards Feedback
