Reflections on coding standards in tertiary Computer Science education

Despite general agreement among practitioners and educators alike that the application of solid uniform coding guidelines is beneficial, the application of coding standards in computer science education seem to be problematic. We applied interpretive research to arrive at an understanding of the attitude of leturers towards coding standards. We identified five aspects of coding guidelines through reasoning about proposed categorisation of coding guidelines found in the literature. We discuss the viewpoints of the interviewed lecturers in terms of these aspects. We conclude with our recommendations to promote the teaching of good programming practices in higher education.