Coding-style: How to improve coding-styles and standards at a company

Question

What are the best ways to improve the standards of coding-styles at a company? Let's use C# as an example here.

I guess there are many differences between developers that need to be taken into consideration. The concrete ones could be education, experience and past programming-languages.

How does one justify that something is right over something else?

One person may say "I move my body to the place where I earn my money with my 4-wheeled vehicle". So why is it more "right" to say "I drive to work in my car"?

Some people might like code more explicit with more lines of code. Some might like more tight code.

// Explicit
string text = defaultValue;
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text)) {
   text = fallbackValue;
}
// Tighter
string text = defaultValue ?? fallbackValue;

Or the old protective programming-style, where you check for error-cases in the beginning and not wrap the whole method body inside a positive if-clause:

public string ChangeText(string text)
{
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
    {
        // Do a lot of stuff 
    }
    else {
        throw new Exception();
    }
}
// vs.
public string ChangeText(string text)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text)) {
        throw new Exception();
    }
    // Do a lot of stuff
}

Is the old "I'm having troubles reading this code" valid here? It's the same situation that was when Generics was introduced to C#, people had an initial trouble reading it.

Where is the line drawn between unreadable code and code that some developers are not used to?

Which part of Phil Haacks "7 Stages of new language keyword grief" has valid points here?

Are there any easy ways to set coding-standards and uphold them in a company?

UPDATE: Take in consideration things like variable-naming, that can't really be defined in a document. Or can it?

Answer 1

The easiest way to set coding-standards at a company:

Create a Standards Document and enforce it.

...people love to complain about code quality, but few will sit down and take the time to create a standards document. It's worth the effort and as long as you can enforce it (code reviews, etc.) then you're bound to notice an improvement in your code.

Answer 2

You always can use free tools like StyleCop from Microsoft.

You can disable or modify rules you don't like