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: f5d71,d275ffeffdf83655 X-Google-Attributes: gidf5d71,public X-Google-Thread: 146b77,d275ffeffdf83655 X-Google-Attributes: gid146b77,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,d275ffeffdf83655 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,d275ffeffdf83655 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@gnat.com Subject: Re: Draconian coding standards (was: Ada vs C++ vs Java) Date: 1999/01/18 Message-ID: <77vpeu$unb$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 434025227 References: <369C1F31.AE5AF7EF@concentric.net> <369DDDC3.FDE09999@sea.ericsson.se> <369e309a.32671759@news.demon.co.uk> <369F1D39.64A65BC1@sea.ericsson.se> <369f81a9.31040093@news.demon.co.uk> <77ommt$9bo$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <77q4p7$diu$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <77vk87$pv9$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x2.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Jan 18 17:02:30 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.vxworks,comp.lang.java X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-01-18T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <77vk87$pv9$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, dennison@telepath.com wrote: > In article <77q4p7$diu$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > > agreed on style. At ACT, we typically vote on things > > that don't really matter, e.g. number of columns of > > indentation, > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A telling phrase there. ;-) I think you are making a serious misintpretation here. I was saying that the *particular choice* is unimportant but consistency is VERY important. As Tarski used to say, it matters not one whit whether you drive on the right or left side of the street, but it is vital for everyone to agree! > The point is to get all the code readable by anyone with > a minimum of effort, not to send individualistic > developers off to Dhakow. The last thing we want > to do is give the message that the best work in the world > is less important than putting the parentheses in the > right place. Nope, that's not the point, the point is that individualistic programmers who make a big stink about conforming to standards are a potential menace. > For just that reason, I tend to try to get standards > drafted so that non-compliant code can be brought into > compliance with a tool. I've seen some environments where > the tool was automaticly run on any code checked into > revision control. (That can be a disaster if no thought > is placed into the settings on the tool). Yup, sounds like a disaster to me, particularly with respect to tracking down changes done from a particular checkin. > But if your style is going to be changed to the > standard *anyway*, most developers will eventually adopt > it themselves. This way folks don't feel like the value > of their creative work is being trivilized. Anyone who thinks that following standards for uniformity in such an area is trivilaizing things has an unbalanced view of things. At one company I worked for, there were strict coding standards (requiring the use of all upper case identifiers in Ada). One developer refused and wrote everything with mixed case. He would not touch code written with upper case identifiers, and consequently would not work on anyone else's code, and no one could touch his in the standard style. Result, he was the only one who knew his code, and disaster struck when he left the company. I would have fired him right away, and thought it was a huge mistake. Yes, he was, in the sense of CMM level 1 heroes, a great programmer, but you simply cannot tolerate this kind of hacker mentality in an disciplined environment committed to sound software engineering. Note incidentally that consistency of style goes FAR beyond the issue of where parens are placed. If you have a team that is dedicated to the desirability of consistency, they will be able to reach this higher level of consistency far more easily. As I have said before, I think the GNAT sources are a good example. No one owns any particular piece of the code, and all the code is written in a highly uniform style that goes far beyond the simple subset that are tools can easily check. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own