[Tutor] good coding habits/practices

[Andre' Walker-Loud]

Hi All,

I have a general question.  I have never taken a formal programming course.  I have learned everything I know from office mates (earlier on) and now mostly Google, as I need it.  Most everything I write is only for my own consumption.  I write scripts/programs to do science research, and have never manage to make the time to take a proper class, or even work through a good python tutorial.

On a matplotlib thread, someone pointed us to a PyCon talk posted on YouTube [for those interested - link below]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXhcPJK5cMc

This particular talk focussed on argument passing in python.  I found it very enjoyable and educational.

One thing I learned - I am really not aware of the coding standards out there.  For example, I was not aware precisely of the argument passing standards discussed in the above talk.

However, I am aware that if I were aware of these things, my ability to do my research would be improved.  Especially, just being more familiar with proper programming.  Also, just because of personal principles, even if my code is only ever really consumed by me, I would like it to meet higher standards of "good code" than it currently does.  However, since I am still hunting for a permanent job, I can not take the time for a full proper course on programming [I still need to use the learn as I need it model].  

So finally the question:  is there a good SUCCINCT guide to things like the POSIX standards, and other programming standards {IEEE ... I believe), and a guide to good programming practices that I can peruse on the web to try and improve my programming skills as I work?

Also - recommended (shorter) tutorials would be nice.
With my current work schedule, things that can be worked through on the order of an hour or so [each lesson that is].


Thanks,

Andre