Ensembl's Coding Standards Use Bioperl sensibly Inherit from existing objects Differentiate internal from external methods Internal methods are preceded by _ and external ones are not. Throw exceptions Make heavy use of the Bioperl $obj->throw syntax to throw exceptions when things look wrong. This drastically cuts down time tracking errors. Document with Bioperl POD Use bioperl boilerplate for method documentation. Always test Testing your code with the Perl test system provides for long term stability. Your code is not written until you have written a test for it. <<alternative statement: "Do not write your code until you have written a test for it.">>