Hacker News Reader

As with most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Not having a coding standard at all is just as bad as having a very rigid standard with no room for free expression and where nobody can remember all the rules.

See StyleCop (for MS languages) for examples where "coding style guides" can go overboard.

View on HN

I don't do coding styles that aren't the "standard" for the language or aren't done by a tool (or at least done by a compile time add on program). I just change employers.

You're paying me 6 figures, you can make reasonable guidelines about things and expect professionalism but not mindful, constant compliance with arbitrary rules. It drains self control and concentration to follow huge coding standards with lots of minutia (Always put a contract with X Y Z above every function, always put stupid ass hungarian in front of your variables, etc).

Yeah, I agree... The best thing is IMHO a standard which answers where to put curly braces and some basic variable naming convention. (Upper/lower/camel case, to prefix or not to prefix with type abbreviations etc... depending on the PL) Going further just creates pointless discussions...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com