"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do."

-- unsure; often attributed without source to information philosopher Ted Nelson

Software development guidelines by Ken Gaillot

Naming conventions

Symbol names

In general, names should be descriptive rather than cryptic abbreviations. This makes debugging easier.

Variable names and "const" constants should generally be all lower-case.

Macros, "enum" constants, and "#define" constants should generally be all upper-case. An exception is a macro that is a wrapper for a function, which should follow the naming style of function.

There are three common styles of function names:

• all lower case, with underbars (ex. print_message()). This is the GNU Project's recommendation.
• starting with lower case, but then mixed-case instead of underbars (ex. printMessage()). This is used, for example, by the OpenGL library.
• starting with upper case, then mixed case (ex. PrintMessage()). This is used, for example, by the X Windows libraries.

Whatever naming conventions you choose, use them consistently.

Security

Consistency and descriptiveness in names helps minimize bugs, which always benefits security.