If you can't agree on the coding style, you probably
can't agree on more important things. Use the coding standard as
a way to build the team. Everybody has to buy in or it won't
be used.
[case vs lookup] One of my most memorable debates about coding
standards was with Jeanette Symons (CTO,
Zone Technologies).
Jeanette and I were both fresh out of school and we had a heated
debate about whether you should use a case (switch) statement or a lookup
table with procedure dispatch. The point is moot today, but it
was very important to both of us at the time. We eventually came
to terms, but it took us hours to resolve our differences.
The culture of coding is critical to any software team. All
teams develop their own language with its idioms, acronyms,
and metaphors. The coding standard should formalize as much
of the culture as possible.