What happened to coding standard as a practice?

I'm sitting here writing a little piece about the benefits of having a team 
coding standard.  I was quoting something I heard Kent say at a conference 
about how "Standardizing on the smallest scale enables flexibility at the 
larger scale."

Then I got to wondering why "Coding standard" is no longer a practice in 
XP2E.  I assume it falls under the umbrella of "Shared Code".  But perhaps 
there is/was a general sentiment in the community that having a team coding 
standard no longer rises to the level of an important practice.

I have found implementing a coding standard to be a very useful first step 
in getting a team to start working as a team.  While sometimes painful, 
having a coding standards discussion encourages people to examine whether 
they're willing to change their individual behavior for the good of the 
team.  Almost no one that I coached has questioned the value of having a 
team standard in conjunction with collective code ownership.

So I guess I'm asking for others' experience and thoughts.

Jeff Nielsen
Chief Scientist
Digital Focus (www.digitalfocus.com) 



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