Improving Coding Standards and Quality

[jul_programmer]

Here is the GDCorner article I've recently found and would like to share with you guys. Check it out!

 

[Skydiver]

This contradicts itself:

Tabs vs Spaces, Brace placement, etc
Who cares? We aren’t living in the 80’s. Most IDEs automatically detect and match indenting, it’s not like you need to press space X times anymore. Tools can catch and fix mismatches. Flip a coin, pick one, configure your tools, and be consistent.

As Bill Sourour says:

Over the past 20+ years, I’ve followed every imaginable trend. I’ve followed the different conventions of different languages. None of it has impacted my bug count or made my code any more efficient.

There are also plenty of tools dedicated to auto-formatting code. Many of these come as plugins for IDEs that auto-format as you go or when you save. I highly recommend finding a few of these and providing pre-tuned configs for your developers. Takes all the hassle out of it.

If nobody cares, then there shouldn't be any pre-tuned configs for developers. Developers should then be allowed to choose their preference (since nobody cares, right?), and then commit that version. Let the next person suffer through reformatting to their preferred style.

But you'll say: "That will really mess up all the diffs in source control and make it harder to review the code." And my answer is "Yes. Yes it will. But you said that you don't care."

 

[jmcilhinney]

This contradicts itself

I'm not sure it does. I think what it is saying is that it doesn't really matter which set of rules you pick but do pick a set of rules and stick to them. I don't think that that is referring to each individual developer within a team but rather the team as a whole, i.e. it doesn't matter what set of rules a team uses but the team should pick a set of rules and stick to it, all having their IDE keep them in line.

 

[Skydiver]

Ah so the "you" was "you, the team", rather than "you, the individual". So if the team decision is to use Allman style in JavaScript even though it is against the language convention, because the majority of the devs are C# and former Pascal developers, and only 10% of the code is JavaScript as opposed to the 90% C# that's just too bad, so sad. (Yes, I know that the article lead with prefer language and framework conventions.)