On 08/20/2012 07:40 PM, Patricia Shanahan wrote:
On 8/20/2012 9:09 AM, Timothy Madden wrote:
...
I don't appreciate coding conventions either. For once, they are
mischievously named "conventions", "style" or "guidelines", but if you
don't follow them, you can't work in project ... which makes them hard
rules, not conventions.
I do think a project should have rules, not conventions. I don't care
much what they are, as long as visible indent reflects logical nesting.
Some programmers already have a style that they feel comfortable working
with, that they are used with. For them the "project should have rules,
though I don't care what they are" attitude is not good enough. A
different style is too annoying and distracts you from your work, and
chances to get a project that enforces exactly your style are slim.
This is why these "conventions" should be choosen carefully and should
be limited to a minimum of rules like:
"use either spaces or a tab size of 8, an indent of +4, and use
braces on their own line",
and otherwise let the programmers be creative and flexible, instead of
showing them a long document full of rules.