Coding Standards, this week's Art of Agile Development release, is now available.

In our discussion of coding standards, Shane and I say that one of the most important things you may learn from coding standards is just how to disagree constructively. I think we were right on target with that one. Coding standards themselves have very little value, I've come to believe. You only really need them if you're having repeated design disagreements--especially if they occur in the guise of repeated refactoring/reversion cycles.

If you're having those sorts of disagreements, coding standards won't resolve the problem. But discussing coding standards might help. It's the discussion that has value, not the standard. The standard merely serves to record the result. If people use the standard as a club, that's your clue that the discussion failed.

Next Week

I'll post a practice from the Releasing chapter next week. There are only two choices left:

• Version Control
• Continuous Integration

Which one should I post? As usual, make your vote in the comments.