If you are a member of a team of programmers or if you are still writing for school assignments, chances are that you have some style rules you must follow. As an experienced programmer and a lead of a team I have seen and used many styles over the years and will try to convey both the importance of good style and some tips on writing code you can be proud of. In this article I will also attempt to cover some output style issues that may help you throughout your programming journey. Websters defines style as a particular manner or technique by which something is done, created, or performed. In computer programming, style is referring both to the way the code is written and the design of the interface.
Style is very subjective and there are many schools of thought on what comprises good style.
Code style includes comments, variable-naming conventions, modular programming, indenting, capitalization, and other choices made by the programmer while writing software. The compiler allows you to type in the code almost any way the programmer sees fit. Output style is a whole different matter. This is your link to the user and this may be the most difficult task in software creation. A long time ago when systems were being designed, programmers used two digits to represent the year, which resulted in the recent Y2K crisis.