*sigh* coders can be so anal.

[p01]

I got asigned to write some coding guidelines for our team at work. I didn't had time last week so I worked ~6 hours on sunday to write them.

A few people have bitched all day because I said one CAN ( as in not SHOULD or MUST ) spare the curly braces for obvious single statements that do not induces another block ( aka something insanely obvious or a continue; break; or return; statement. )

And of course the same people also bitched about me endorsing the use of 1 TABs per indentation instead of N spaces, and they have a hard time acknowledging that one can even align asignments using TABs. Duh!


AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaahh!


I just need to evacuate the (ridiculous) stress they put on me after a whole day spent arguing on IRC and across 40+ mails on our internal mailing list. Finger pointing their anal behavior and inability to read by mail didn't help lowering the pressure. Hopefully(!), tomorrow is another day.

[Jim]

I've always used tabs.  I got in bother for that at university because when you were nested 4 or 5 statements deep the stupid editor tabbed about halfway across the screen.  Supposed to use 2 spaces.
I still get in trouble with OpenWatcom when I submit code with tabs.  Supposed to use 4 spaces.
Most of the editors I use today let you set tab stops and automatically convert tabs<->spaces.  I thought this was a solved problem, but obviously not.
I still use tabs though!

Jim

[benny!]

@p01:

That sounds pretty tough. Are your fellow workers / programmers very old? Thinking of
their reactions towards your advices it seems to me that they are pretty old and bullheaded.

AFAIK every company has a certain protocol which defines some coding guidelines and
documentation standards every employer has to follow. Just because that there is the same
basic structure of each coders work. So, new programmers can read their code more easily.

Hope tomorrow everything is ok again. Anyway - good luck !!!

[p01]

Thanks.

Jim: The document explicitly says to mention the tabSize in a comment in the header of the file if it's not the default 8 characters.

I don't remember how I used to code on Amstrad or in GFA basic on ST, but I'm absolutely positive I've used TABs for everything else for the last 15years. ( assembly 680x0/80x86, C/C++, Pascal, JavaScript, PHP, Java, ... )


benny!: The whiners are not really old. Mid 20's, early 30's.
I got rather positive and spot on feedback from the others. Age ranging from early 20's to late 40's, with a max of 5 years of professional experience on IT.

The company I work for has ~300 engineers spread in various departments and countries, we use many languages ( c/c++, js, perl, python, java, pike, ... ). It's difficult/impossible to instill coding guidelines for everyone. But on a department or language level, it should be possible.

[benny!]

benny!: The whiners are not really old. Mid 20's, early 30's.
I got rather positive and spot on feedback from the others. Age ranging from early 20's
to late 40's, with a max of 5 years of professional experience on IT.

So young and already bullheaded and not open to new standards or working
techniques ... tz tz tz ...

The company I work for has ~300 engineers spread
in various departments and countries, we use many languages ( c/c++, js, perl, python, java,
pike, ... ). It's difficult/impossible to instill coding guidelines for everyone. But on a department
or language level, it should be possible.

Definately. As stated before. On department level you should have certain guidelines and coding
rules. Especially in such a large company ( nice on btw. ) where there is a higher employee turnover
than in smaller companies. Well, hope it all turns out well for you - and hopefully the programmers
really do understand why it is important and not just doing it because they think it is a must.

Keep your head up

[Shockwave]

Email and Irc etc is a pain in the arse too, I honestly believe that a telephone or conference call can sort out more difficulties than any number of emails. Some people I know spend nearly all day answering internal emails, never mind doing any productive work.

[p01]

Actually they argued that you have to mix TABs and spaces to align things. But that's pure BS.

The thing they were mad  about was the suggestion that one can spare the curly braces for obvious things like one line statement ( esp. return, continue, break )

Thanks for good words.

Benny!: Yep, nice company, and the turnover is not that big. My team, the Web Applications team, is ~2.5yo and AFAIK noone left. Only one part-time employee didn't get re-employed and joined another team.

As for them following the guidelines, well, I'm not delusionnal. They'll follow religiously those they like ( such as the general naming conventions ), a bit reluctantly some they like less ( naming conventions for abbreviations and the order of the conditions ( place the constant on the left ) ), and pretend for a couple of months that they'll follow the others next week. :p

Shockwave: I'm not that a "phone" person. Phone is only efficient for a 1 to 1 discussion but as soon as there is more people involved or that it gets technical ( copy paste some code snippets, ask advises, give links, refer to bug reports, ... ) IM and/or email communications is a required.