C# Coding Guidelines for all versions up to and including v14

1.1. What is this?

This document provides practical and valuable coding guidelines (or coding standards if you like) for all versions of C# up to and including v14. If you create such a document, you should practice what you preach, so these guidelines are representative of what we at Aviva Solutions do in our day-to-day work. Not all guidelines have a universal rationale; some are explicit choices we made at Aviva Solutions.

1.2. Why would you use this document?

Although some might see coding guidelines as undesired overhead or something that limits creativity, this approach has already proven its value for many years.

1.4. How do you get started?

Ask all developers to carefully read this document at least once. This will give them a sense of the kind of guidelines the document contains. Make sure there are always a few hard copies of the Cheat Sheet close at hand.

1.5. Why did we create it?

The idea started in 2002 when Vic Hartog (Philips Medical Systems) and I were assigned to write a coding standard for C# 1.0. Since then, I’ve regularly added, removed, and changed rules based on practical experience, community feedback, and new tooling support in the .NET ecosystem. Special thanks go to Bart Koelman for being a very active contributor over all those years. After reading Robert C.

1.6. Is this a coding standard?

The document does not state that projects must comply with these guidelines, neither does it say which guidelines are more important than others. However, we encourage projects to decide themselves which guidelines are important, what deviations a project will use, who is the consultant in case doubts arise, and what kind of layout must be used for source code.