Timeline for Does your company have a coding standard?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 21, 2011 at 23:29 | comment | added | JeffO | What's the point of maintaining a "standard" that doesn't work? Today we consistently code this way, tomorrow we will consistently code with a minor change. | |
| Aug 21, 2011 at 23:21 | comment | added | Rei Miyasaka | Agree with @Fishtoaster here. "Undocumented standard" is an oxymoron. The whole idea of a standard is that you have some rules to follow in situations where there are no clear resolutions to a dilemma (e.g. how to prefix variable names, what casing to use for function). In that sense, standards are simply recurring last resorts. If your team has better ideas, let them follow those. If your organization is prioritizing adherence to standards over function, that's where your problem is, not with the notion of documented standards. | |
| Nov 19, 2010 at 1:42 | comment | added | jellyfishtree | not writing it down seems to invite a chicken-egg paradox. which came first? the code or the standard.. | |
| Sep 11, 2010 at 11:27 | vote | accept | Walter | ||
| Sep 8, 2010 at 19:43 | comment | added | Walter | @Fishtoaster - mostly because I'm lazy! :-) | |
| Sep 8, 2010 at 17:24 | comment | added | Paddyslacker | If the standard is owned by the team, then the team should be able to evolve the standard over time. If not, you'll end up with either the standard being one person's idea, or with some of the archaic suggestions that are currently being documented in this question: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/1338/… | |
| Sep 8, 2010 at 16:50 | comment | added | Fishtoaster | Ok, the code-documents-the-standard makes sense if you assume the standard is often evolving. That raises the question of why your standard's evolving, though. The biggest reason I can think of to have a coding standard is consistency, which you don't get if the standard evolves. | |
| Sep 8, 2010 at 15:50 | comment | added | Paddyslacker | @Fishtoaster - The idea is that the code itself documents the standard. Just as design documentation is often not maintained as the code changes, detailed coding standards documents will get out of sync with the code as the standards evolve. What we do is choose some representative modules and use them as guidelines. It's worth writing a brief introductory document (we use a wiki and link to the actual code) that shows you where to find the representative code. | |
| Sep 8, 2010 at 15:45 | comment | added | Fishtoaster | Why no writing them down? | |
| Sep 8, 2010 at 15:20 | comment | added | Walter | +1 for quoting Uncle Bob. and +1 (if I could) for the suggestion of NOT writing them down. | |
| Sep 8, 2010 at 15:13 | history | answered | Paddyslacker | CC BY-SA 2.5 |