Missing topics / discussion points

[pfankhauser]

Awesome style guide, thanks! Here are some points which I'd like your input on and could maybe made explicit in the style guide.

• [ ] Should one always use setter and getter methods?
• [ ] Duplicate code is evil! Create functions for commonly used commands (also for simple ones that become long because of long variable names).
• [ ] Write code to be as less error prone as possible (How to we achieve this?)
• [ ] A class should be understandable/usable by reading the public interface and without having to read all the code.

I guess these points are pretty clear to all experienced programmers. But some of them could maybe be phrased more explicit in the guide for the beginners.

[stephanemagnenat]

Impressive, you managed to get working ticks in the issue tracker, I am wondering if clicking them makes any change.

Here are my comments to your questions:

• For the getters/setters, I would use them if they do something more then writing/reading a variable, or if a variable must be protected from writes. Note that in this case, if the variable is constant within the life time of the object, I would rather put it public const that using a getter, less code to read is better if everything else is equal.
• Duplicate code is indeed evil, and harmful.
• On the understandability of class, if time is limited I would stress the importance of documenting the program design, and how classes work together, rather than paraphrasing function names with short auto doc. Of course, if one has time to document everything it is better, but this is yet to be seen.