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Comment by __loam | Hacker News Reader

Code should not have personality. If you're working in a massive code base and people can tell you wrote code, that's probably an indictment on your code more than whatever style the company has chosen to use. Homogeneous code bases are the goal.

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Only if you are an employer who wants to treat programmers interchangeably..... as a programmer, you have zero reason to do that. If all the codebase is homogenous, you can be replaced way easier, which is probably not what you want.

If your code style is what gives you the feeling of security at work… Well that’s a bit sad and I’m not convinced a linter can be blamed for anyone losing their jobs.

No, mostly not. Doing my job properly gives me job security for the most part - but this is one of the things where I don't see any benefit for yourself, there is only a benefit for your employer. Of course, I'm not advocating writing cryptic undocumented obfuscated mess (that's just plain unethical, even if it's "good" for you), but coding in a "standard" style just benefits your employer, not you. It just means you are more easily replaceable without any benefit for you. You won't learn more from doing it, you won't gain any skills or anything.

> It just means you are more easily replaceable without any benefit for you

What does this even mean?

Companies don’t (well, shouldn’t) hire developers to just write code. They hire them to solve problems. I’m not going to more easily replaced because my code follows the same styles as others, if I am the one solving the problems they have.

Yes, but others can also solve those problems. And if you make your code really standards-comforming, management will see that they could onboard another programmer really quickly. This is what you want to avoid.

Not to be mean or rude, but if we had a developer that was refusing to adhere to our standards, they not last long. Being able to produce code in agreed upon standards is table stakes.

Sure, and I'll agree to accept the standards. I'll follow them most of the time. Except when I "forget".

You would not last long in my team. When you “forget” the standard, you would have to rewrite your code. In the end you would perform a lot worse than other team members.

Anyone should be able to follow coding standards, you do not have to be smart for that. You just have to be able to put aside your ego and follow what the team is doing. I am a lot more forgiving to people making mistakes than to people forgetting the coding style.

And anyhow, I enforce the code style by making sure the code simply does not build if you do not follow it.

Ah, I see now, you’re a troll. That should have been obvious earlier…

I am not a troll, I just don't do things which actively work against me.

> If all the codebase is homogenous, you can be replaced way easier, which is probably not what you want.

That's exactly what you want, unless your goal is to have job security rather than building something.

Absurd view. At least try to be professional.

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