Coding Style and Conventions

In general, the project follows the C# Coding Convention and Framework Design Guidelines. We use tools like StyleCop to help enforce some of the rules mentioned below.

• DO NOT require that users perform any extensive initialization before they can start programming basic scenarios.
• DO provide good defaults for all values associated with parameters, options, etc.
• DO ensure that APIs are intuitive and can be successfully used in basic scenarios without referring to the reference documentation (though see below).
• DO communicate incorrect usage of APIs as soon as possible.
• DO design an API by writing code samples for the main scenarios. Only then, you define the object model that supports those code samples.
• DO NOT use regions. DO use partial classes instead.
• DO declare static dependency properties at the top of their file.
• DO NOT seal controls.
• DO use extension methods over static methods where possible.
• DO NOT return true or false to give success status. Throw exceptions if there was a failure.
• DO use verbs like GET.
• DO NOT use verbs that are not already used like fetch.

Documentation

• DO NOT expect that your API is so well designed that it needs no documentation. No API is that intuitive.
• DO provide great documentation with all APIs.
• DO use readable and self-documenting identifier names.
• DO use consistent naming and terminology.
• DO provide strongly typed APIs.
• DO use verbose identifier names.

Files and Folders

• DO NOT create a new namespace for every folder.
• DO associate no more than one class per file.
• DO use folders to group classes based on features.