nytimes/objective-c-style-guide

Note: this repository has been deprecated and is no longer maintained. This repository contains the Objective-C coding style guide that the iOS engineering teams at The New York Times used internally. Objective-C is the programming language Apple used for iOS and Mac app development before Swift became the dominant option. Style guides like this one exist so that everyone on a team writes code in a consistent way, making it easier for engineers to read and review each other's work. The guide covers a wide range of formatting and convention decisions. It specifies things like how many spaces to use for indentation, where to place curly braces in conditional statements, how to name variables and constants so their type and purpose are clear, and when to use certain language features like dot notation versus bracket notation for accessing object properties. It also covers how to handle errors, how to define enumerations and bitmasks, and how to structure Xcode project files. Each rule is explained with a short rationale and paired code examples showing the preferred style and a counter-example showing what to avoid. The guide uses the terms MUST, SHOULD, and RECOMMENDED to signal which rules are strict requirements and which are softer preferences, following the same conventions used in internet standards documents. The guide was publicly released so that other iOS development teams could adopt it, adapt it, or use it as a reference when building their own conventions. It drew heavily from Apple's own official documentation on Objective-C programming and Cocoa coding guidelines. The project is no longer active, as Objective-C has largely been succeeded by Swift for new iOS development.