一致性可以应用于系统中的许多级别。这里有一些例子。
名字。 第十四章：选择的名字 已经讨论了以一致的方式使用名称的好处。
编码样式。如今，开发组织通常拥有样式指南，这些样式指南将程序结构限制在编译器所强制执行的规则之外。现代风格指南解决了一系列问题，例如缩进，大括号放置，声明顺序，命名，注释以及对认为危险的语言功能的限制。样式指南使代码更易于阅读，并且可以减少某些类型的错误。
接口。具有多个实现的接口是一致性的另一个示例。一旦了解了接口的一种实现，其他任何实现都将变得更易于理解，因为您已经知道它将必须提供的功能。
设计模式。设计模式是某些常见问题的普遍接受的解决方案，例如用于用户界面设计的模型视图控制器方法。如果您可以使用现有的设计模式来解决问题，则实现会更快地进行，更有可能起作用，并且您的代码对读者来说也会更明显。设计模式将在 19.5. 设计模式 中详细讨论。
不变量。不变式是始终为真的变量或结构的属性。例如，存储文本行的数据结构可能会强制要求每行以换行符终止。不变式减少了代码中必须考虑的特殊情况的数量，并使推理行为的方式变得更加容易。
Consistency can be applied at many levels in a system; here are a few examples.
Names. Chapter 14 has already discussed the benefits of using names in a consistent way.
Coding style. It is common nowadays for development organizations to have style guides that restrict program structure beyond the rules enforced by compilers. Modern style guides address a range of issues, such as indentation, curly-brace placement, order of declarations, naming, commenting, and restrictions on language features considered dangerous. Style guidelines make code easier to read and can reduce some kinds of errors.
Interfaces. An interface with multiple implementations is another example of consistency. Once you understand one implementation of the interface, any other implementation becomes easier to understand because you already know the features it will have to provide.
Design patterns. Design patterns are generally-accepted solutions to certain common problems, such as the model-view-controller approach to user interface design. If you can use an existing design pattern to solve the problem, the implementation will proceed more quickly, it is more likely to work, and your code will be more obvious to readers. Design patterns are discussed in more detail in Section 19.5.
Invariants. An invariant is a property of a variable or structure that is always true. For example, a data structure storing lines of text might enforce an invariant that each line is terminated by a newline character. Invariants reduce the number of special cases that must be considered in code and make it easier to reason about the code’s behavior.