opm-simulators/doc/handbook/guidelines.tex
Andreas Lauser 3e55945ce5 change namespace from Dumux to Ewoms
eWoms hereby declares full independence. Humor aside, the main
technical advantage of this is, that it is now possible to easily
install both, Dumux and eWoms on a system using a package management
system without bad tricks.
2012-11-18 16:58:22 +01:00

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\chapter{Coding Style Guidelines}
\label{guidelines}
An important characteristic of source code is that it is written only
once but usually it is read many times (e.g. when debugging things,
adding features, etc.). For this reason, good programming frameworks
always aim to be as readable as possible, even if comes with higher
effort to write them in the first place. The remainder of this section
is very similar to the \Dune coding guidelines found at the \Dune
website~\cite{DUNE-HP}. These guidelines are also strongly recommended
for working with \eWoms. Some of these coding style rules may seem
like splitting hairs to you, but they do make it much easier for
everybody to work on code that has not been written by oneself.
\begin{itemize}
\item Naming:
\begin{itemize}
\item Comments: They are helpful! Use comments extensively to explain
what your code does, but please refrain from adding trivial
comments. Trivial comments are, for example comments that only
parrot the source code (``this method sets a'' as the comment for a
method called \texttt{setA()}), or comments that explain language
features (``if b is true then a is c else d'' for the statement
\texttt{a = b?c:d}).
\item All comments, documentation and variable or type names are
exclusivly using the English language.
\item Variables: Names for variables should only feature letters and
digits. The first letter should be lower case. If your variable
names consists of several words, then the first letter of each new
word should be capitalized.
\item Variables and methods should be named as self-explanatory as
possible. Especially, this means abbreviations should be avoided
(for example, use 'saturation' in stead of 'S')
\item Method parameters which are not self-explanatory should always
have a meaningful comment a at calling sites. Example:
\begin{lstlisting}[style=eWomsCode]
localResidual.eval(/*includeBoundaries=*/true);
\end{lstlisting}
\item Private attributes: Names of private attributes should end with
an underscore and are supposed to be the only variables that contain
underscores.
\item Typenames: For typenames (classes, structures, typedefs, etc),
the same rules as for variables apply. The only difference is that
the first letter should be a capital one.
\item Macros: The use of preprocessor macros is strongly
discouraged. If you have to use them for whatever reason, please use
capital letters only.
\item Guardian macros: Every header file traditionally begins with the
definition of a preprocessor macro that is used to make sure that
the header file is only included once. If your header file is
called 'myheaderfile.hh', this constant should be named
\texttt{EWOMS\_MYHEADERFILE\_HH}.
\item Files: File names should exclusively consist of lower case
letters. Header files get the suffix .hh, implementation files the
suffix .cc
\end{itemize}
\item Documentation: \eWoms, as any software project of similar
complexity, will stand and fall with the quality of its
documentation. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that you
document everything you do well! We use the doxygen system to
extract easily-readable documentation from the source code. Please
use its syntax everywhere. In particular, please comment
\textbf{all}
\begin{itemize}
\item Method parameters
\item Template parameters
\item Return values
\item Exceptions thrown by a method
\end{itemize}
Since we all know that writing documentation is not well-liked and is
frequently defered to some vague 'next week', we herewith proclaim
the Doc-Me Dogma . It goes like this: Whatever you do, and in
whatever hurry you happen to be, please document everything at least
with a {\verb /** $\backslash$todo Please doc me! */}. That way at
least the absence of documentation is documented, and it is easier to
get rid of it systematically.
\item Exceptions: The use of exceptions for error handling is
encouraged. Until further notice, all exceptions thrown are derived
from \texttt{Dune::Exception}.
\item Debugging code: Code which is only there to ease the debugging
process should always be switched off if the preprocessor macro
NDEBUG is defined. In particular, all assertations are automatically
removed. Use those assertations freely!
\end{itemize}
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