From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,21bbcb8deeeab673 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" Subject: Re: Ada95 Pretty-Printers/Coding styles Date: 1997/07/03 Message-ID: <33BBE9E4.4911@gsg.eds.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 254300067 References: <33A54D07.4E14@aisf.com> Organization: EDS MS Reply-To: nospam@gsg.eds.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-07-03T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote: > > I think that commonality of style is necessary to get a really cooperative > environment that effectively eliminates the notion of code ownership (I > certainly have never seen this achieved in an environment without a > strong sense of common style). I've been in cooperative environments, and never has it been necessary to tell the programmers to adopt a common style and code in lock step. If that's the only way that you can get cooperation then there's something wrong with your managers or your programmers, probably both. Further, I know of no evidence that eliminating the sense of code ownership is desirable, or even benign. That said, there are several areas where. IMHO, uniformity is desirable. A common set of tools allows the programmers to easily interchange data and enhancements to the tool set. A programmer modifying an existing procedure should adhere to the existing conventions for, e.g., indentation, in order to keep it cohesive. As to a sense of ownership, I believe that it leads to pride in workmanship provided that it is not used as an excuse for maintaining an exclusive lock on the code or an immature and unprofessional resentment of anyone who finds a problem in it. But the latter problem, in my experience, is more likely when the entire group regards the code as collectively theirs than when "ownership" is vested in just one programmer. I but software from small developers and from large corporations. The small developers generally have a sense of ownership, and they are generally very responsive to problem reports. The large corporations, for the most part, have institutional ownership of the code and stonewall when problems are reported. Of course, there are exceptions: lousy personal support and good institutional support. But those are in the "man bites dog" category. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Senior Software SE The values in from and reply-to are for the benefit of spammers: reply to domain eds.com, user msustys1.smetz or to domain gsg.eds.com, user smetz. The opinions expressed are my own, and do not necessarilly reflect those of my employer, my spouse, my children or my PC.