Indy Coding Conventions and Standards

This section describes the source code standards we have for Indy.

One key to Indy's success is making and following standards. However, we try not to emphasize standards as if they were hard rules (shoulds and should nots) but rather emphasized the reasoning behind the standards. This section is long and complex. We make no bones about it. Indy has been in development for a long time (way back to the first version of Winshoes), a lot was learned in the process, and we have high demands placed upon us.

Main Goals

The following main goals apply to all platforms.

1. Source code must be readable and maintainable for long periods independently of the original author.
2. Reduce code overhead in a realistic manner.
3. Ensure consistency throughout the entire the Indy classes and components
4. Provide for international usage  

Platform specific standards

As there are differences in the platforms we have to differentiate the standards. The following platform specific standards are driven by the same main goals though.

• FreePascal
• .NET, Mono (C#, VisualStudio etc.)
• Win32, Linux (Delphi, BCB, Kylix)

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