Programming Rules and Conventions

Although the examples are in Erlang, none of this seems particularly Erlang-specific

This reference is full of sound advice for the new Erlang programmer. If you break it, you need to have a good reason to do so.<p>Also the seasoned Erlang programmer will find it useful.

<i>Don't allow private data structure to "leak" out of a module</i> offers a great example in module, type, or even class design.

<i>3.1 Export as few functions as possible from a module</i> — <i>3.2 Try to reduce intermodule dependencies</i><p>At last a coding convention guide that deals with something other than <i>syntax</i>. And at the very beginning to boot. If I ever have a say to such things at work, I'm going to take some inspiration from that.

How good can a programming language with such a long and complex programming rules and conventions book be?

Why not program defensively?