TEVERSE-STYLE.md

Naming

Teverse uses camelCase built-in for everything. As a result, we'll use camelCase in every scenario except for constants.

Bad

local foobar

local function FooBar(Baz)
-- ...

Good

local fooBar

local function bazQux(quz)
--..

Variables

These should be able to be read by humans! Unless the function is very short, the name of the variable/argument should be verbose enough to describe its meaning. Please use locals and abstain from globals whenever possible.

Bad

function x(y, z)
-- ...

Good

local function runCourse(courseName, targetObjective)
    -- ...

Documentation

To promote readability, understanding and maintainability of shared code, documentation is necessary for all methods.

Good

local function foo(bar, baz)
    
    --[[
        @Description
            concatenates "foo" with {bar} and optionally {baz}

        @Params
            String, bar
                Description
            String, [baz]
                ...
        
        @Returns
            String, foobar
                ...
    ]]

    baz = baz or ""

    return "foo" .. bar .. baz 

end

Lua Idioms

To test if a variable is not nil in a conditional, it is terser to write the variable name to explicitly compare against nil. Lua treats nil and false as false (and all other values as true) in a conditional. However, if the variable tested can contain false as well, then you'll need to be explicit if the two conditions must be differentiated: line == nil v.s. line == false.

Bad

if (foo ~= nil) then 
    -- ...
end

if (bar == nil) then
    -- ...
end

Good

if (foo) then 
    -- ...
end

if (not bar) then
    -- ...
end

and and or may be used for terser code:

Good

local foo = bar or "baz"
print(foo == "baz" and "qux" or "quz")

Clone a small table t (warning: this has a system dependent limit on table size; it was just over 2000 on one system):

Good

local foo = { 1, 2, 3 }
local baz = { unpack(foo) }

Determine if a table t is empty (including non-integer keys, which #t ignores):

Good

local foo = {}
if (next(t)) then 
-- ...

To append to an array, it can be terser and more efficient to insert numerically

Bad

local foo = { 1, 2 }
table.insert(foo, 3)

Good

local foo = { 1, 2 }
foo[#foo + 1]  = 3

Related Resources

http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaStyleGuide