title: Shell script templates
body: <p>What would be your suggestions for a good bash/ksh script template to use as a standard for all newly created scripts?</p>
  
  <p>I usually start (after the <code>#!</code> line) with a commented-out header with a filename, synopsis, usage, return values, author(s), changelog and would fit into 80-char lines.</p>
  
  <p>All documentation lines I start with double-hash symbols <code>##</code> so I can grep for them easily and local var names are prepended with "__".</p>
  
  <p>Any other best practices? Tips? Naming conventions? What about return codes? </p>
  
  <p>Comments on version control : we use SVN all right, but another dept in the enterprise has a separate repo and this is their script. How do I know who to contact with Q's if there is no @author info? Using entries similar to javadocs has some merit even in the shell context, IMHO, but I might be wrong.</p>