Style Glossary

Browse 8 style terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

8 Style Terms

Code Convention: A shared rule or habit for how code should be written, named, structured, or organized across a codebase. Code conventions improve readability and reduce...
Code Format: The visual style and layout of source code, including indentation, spacing, line breaks, import ordering, and other structural presentation choices. Consistent...
Code Jazz: Code written with a lot of improvisation, flow, and stylistic freedom, sometimes elegant and sometimes impossible for others to follow. In engineering slang,...
Code Poet: A programmer admired for writing unusually elegant, expressive, or aesthetically pleasing code. The phrase is cultural rather than formal, and usually praises...
Code Style Culture: A team's collective habits and opinions around code style, such as formatting, naming, comments, and readability conventions. Strong code style culture can...
Signature Move: A distinctive action, technique, or habit that a person or team becomes known for. In engineering slang, a signature move is often the thing everyone expects...
Tabs vs. Spaces: The oldest and most pointless debate in programming: whether to use tab characters or space characters for indentation. Silicon Valley dedicated an entire...
Yoda Conditions: Writing conditions with the constant on the left side: 'if (42 == answer)' instead of 'if (answer == 42)'. Prevents accidental assignment in C-like languages....