Merge branch 'erodrigu-devel-docs-1' into 'master'

Add documentation on style, type hints and pre-commit hooks

See merge request !925

doc/guide/developing.rst

@@ -22,8 +22,31 @@ Alternatively, especially for small changes, a development environment can be bu
     git lb-use DaVinci
 
 
-Coding conventions
-------------------
+Coding conventions, style and type hints
+----------------------------------------
+
+Python code in the stack follows the `PEP8 guidelines <https://peps.python.org/pep-0008/>`_
+and other general good practices:
+
+* Include comments and documentation ("docstrings") when the intent of a line, function, class, or module is not obvious.
+* Factor code into functions when there is repetition and/or for clarity.
+* When modifying an existing file, following the conventions of the surrounding code.
+
+Style and formatting checks are implemented in continuous integration (see subsection below)
+via  `pre-commit <https://pre-commit.com/>`_ hooks.
+The following hooks are implemented: `Black`, `codespell`, `Flake8`, `pre-commit-hooks`, `pyupgrade`.
+Refer to the repository `.pre-commit-config.yaml` for the actual implementation details.
+
+Developers are encouraged to run the hooks locally prior to pushing to the repositories.
+This is easily done with the following:
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+    pre-commit install  # only needed once to install pre-commit
+    pre-commit run --all-files  # example to run all hooks on all files
+
+Static typing (hints) is available in Python 3 and the offline stack now implements type hints and checking thereof.
+Type hints are for now not compulsory but are strongly encouraged.
 
 
 Tests and continuous integration