Re: software engineering and the notion of authorship

[The Amorphous Mass <robinson@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>]

On Mon, 8 Jul 1996, Jakob Engblom wrote:

> !!!! SUPEr!!!!!
> 
> Only in software do we even think of accepting personal style like... it would
> be quite devastating in any other industry if an engineer insisted on using 
> left-handed instead of right-handed bolts "because I feel creative today"..
> things have to fit together, and TEAM WORK is the essential part of any
> programming project.

  I have a simple question:  Do we all mean the same thing by 
"programming style?"  It seems that the people supporting individual 
style are assuming that there are *some* coding standards being followed, 
and the "style" boils down to formatting idioms and whether they prefer 
for, while, do-while, etc, or the _exact_ way they name variables (for 
example, if the convention is To_Write_Variables_This_Way then one 
person's List_Of_Items will be another person's Item_List, etc).  The people 
dissing it seem to think that it implies that no standard, or no 
significant standard is being followed.  Using a left-handed bolt one 
day "because I feel creative" is like writing a module in SNOBOL one day 
"because I feel creative."  It doesn't have anything to do with the 
particular coding idiom that a programmer uses (which should be 
_consistent_:  it is a means of expression, not a whim), and it doesn't mean 
that the idioms can't be standardized to a certain extent, and it certainly 
doesn't mean that one person cannot read another person's code.  I 
learned C from a textbook whose formatting style I immediately disliked, 
but which I was nevertheless quite able to read.  Now I can see both Mr. 
Dewar's and Mr. Henderson's side of this issue -- I'm just getting the 
feeling that not everyone is talking about the same thing.
  If comments and documentation are counted as part of the code I would 
be amazed to hear that there is a single project of any significant size 
where it is impossible to tell who wrote the code, considering that 
writing styles tend to be individual.  Especially if the comments go into 
any depth. :-)

James Robinson.........................................james-robinson@uiowa.edu
   "To be prepared against surprise is to be /trained/.  To be prepared for
   surprise is to be /educated/."  --James Carse, _Finite_and_Infinite_Games_