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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,4b06f8f15f01a568 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public From: dewarr@my-dejanews.com Subject: Re: Software landmines (loops) Date: 1998/09/12 Message-ID: <6telqi$aab$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 390493221 References: <35DBDD24.D003404D@calfp.co.uk> <904556531.666222@miso.it.uq.edu.au> <6sgror$je8$3@news.indigo.ie> <6sh3qn$9p2$1@hirame.wwa.com> <6simjo$jnh$1@hirame.wwa.com> <6sjk3p$4tc$1@hirame.wwa.com> <6skgn4$3gq$1@hirame.wwa.com> <6sm6md$3fh$1@hirame.wwa.com> <35f1375e.6237208@news.erols.com> <35F74AEC.21982C2B@oma.com> <6t937n$ep6$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x2.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 209.73.133.253 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Sat Sep 12 20:33:21 1998 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/2.02 (OS/2; I) Date: 1998-09-12T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Ell wrote: > >: For me, the reason it makes sense to simply take majority >: votes on style issues is that consistency is THE most >: important issue, much more important than the actual >: decisions (it's like driving, it really doesn't matter if >: you drive on the left or right, but it is really important >: to agree>>> > >Wrong headed pragmatism, pure and simple. > >It's ludicrous on the face of it to say all that matters is making a >decision, not the content of the decision itself. That's like saying it's >more important that we all decided to poison ourselves, rather than >questioning the whole decision. What on earth has poisoning ourselves got to do with the matter at hand, and what on earth makes you think I was suggesting that the majority decision is right for all things. If you must bring in totally irrelevant details like this, one can only assume you have no real argument! The issue I was raising was purely with respect to style issues. I find most arguments about style pretty silly. They are typically one person who is sure they are right but have no data to back up their opinions arguing with another person who argues something else and is sure they are right, but also has no data. I will repeat that what I *really* find important is consistency. When a team writes a program, it should be impossible to tell one person's style from another. This has many advantages, it means that it is much easier to read the code, since you only have to adjust to one style, and that code is more interchangable because people don't feel they own pieces of the code. Egotistical code ownership is definitely a negative factor in achieving high and reliable productivity from a programming group. That being said, to achieve consistency, you need to discuss various issues for sure, a majority decision taken without discussion is an uninformed decision, but after that decision using a majority vote is just fine, and everyone needs to agree in advance to be bound by this decision. This means that everyone has to agree in advance that consistency is more important than their pet programming style. This is particularly useful when the argument is about a totally idiotic issue like what style of {} to use in C code, or how many characters to indent. Of course some of these simple things can be handled by tools (and most certainly can be checked by a tool), but more complex style rules are not always susceptible to tool checking, because all but the simplest kind of rules tend to have legitimate exceptions. It is dealing with these exceptions that often causes trouble. For example, people know that gotos and spaghetti code are a bad thing, but they wouldn't recognize what is and what is not spaghetti code if it was wound around their fork, so they have to fall back on an absolute rule of no gotos. In any case the important thing for any project, really just a *starting* point towards achieving a well managed project, is to agree on a complete set of style guidelines/rules for coding. I am always amazed to find serious mission critical projects being coded in an anarchic style in environments where programmers would not be willing to touch code written by their colleages. I find that completely untenable. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum