---
title: ".Net Coding Conventions"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/9/net-coding-conventions.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/9/net-coding-conventions.html"
published: "2003-05-09T21:54:00"
updated: "2003-05-09T21:54:00"
tags: [".Net Quotations"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "A friend asked me some time ago whether I have any good document regarding coding conventions and guidlines for C# and overall .Net programming. I didn't have an answer then so I handed them the document I compiled from…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# .Net Coding Conventions

By Roy Osherove May 9, 2003 In [.Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations)

**Historical article** · Originally published May 9, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

A friend asked me some time ago whether I have any good document regarding coding conventions and guidlines for C# and overall .Net programming. I didn't have an answer then so I handed them the document I compiled from my old VB days as a team leader regarding code conventions. It would at least be a blueprint as to what was needed.

However, I found a useful resource on this today (courtesy of [Ed Kaim](http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/edkaim/commentview.aspx/81edb4ee-c24f-4f01-a605-21e42068e765)).

[This link](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpgenref/html/cpconnetframeworkdesignguidelines.asp) in MSDN contains just about anything one could ask for (A little bit too much actually) in terms of guidelines, ranging from naming conventions through Error and Exception handling and forwarding and up to "Guidelines for Exposing Functionality to COM".

Pretty darn thorough, I'd say.

## More in .Net Quotations

[All posts in .Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations)

- May 15, 2003

    ### [One Cool Menu](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/15/one-cool-menu.html)

- May 13, 2003

    ### [MSDN Hands-On Labs](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/13/msdn-hands-on-labs.html)

- May 9, 2003

    ### [Windows Server 2003 for Developers](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/9/windows-server-2003-for-developers.html)

- May 9, 2003

    ### [Production Debugging for .NET Framework Applications](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/9/production-debugging-for-net-framework-applications.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/