4.4. A Word about Style

Consistency leads to better programs. [1] If the same construct (for loop, while loop, … ) is done exactly the same way every time, then any variation suggests a genuine difference that is worth noting.

Like natural languages, programming languages have idioms – conventional ways that experienced programmers write common pieces of code. A central part of learning any language is developing a familiarity with its idioms. When things are expressed using phrases or code that do not fit with the idiomatic mores of the language, the result is often confusion. For example, one might write a for loop as follows.

for( i = 0; i <= (n - 1); )
   array[i++] = 1;

Or like:

for( i = n-1; i >= 0; i--)
   array[i] = 1;

Both of these are correct, but the idiomatic form is like this:

for( i = 0; i < n; i++)
   array[i] = 1;

Footnotes

[1]	For more information see Section 1.3 of The Practice of Programming by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike.