Re: Seeking Best Practices - does your company follow a standard?

For the formatting, perltidy,

Ah, so you have a coding standard with trivialities like how to format lines of code. (See my other post in this thread about why I don't like codified coding standards).

What are your sanctions if someone breaks the coding standard?
I really see this as a non-issue.

Strange. I see what you do when a standard isn't followed as one of the most important issues. It defines how serious a standard is taken.

If he's a good coder and the team is going to follow a standard but he refuses.... well then he's not a great employee is he?

I've heard that argument about wearing ties as well.

I've known good coders who were awful employees and they got let go.

About the use of whitespace? That's the example I'm using. I wasn't talking about not writing readable code. I was talking about not following the number of spaces the company standard dictates.

How do you quantify something like this?

Well, that was my question, wasn't? If you can't measure it, does it have a significant effect?

Comment on Re: Seeking Best Practices - does your company follow a standard?

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Re^2: Seeking Best Practices - does your company follow a standard? by meraxes (Friar) on May 06, 2010 at 16:23 UTC
Ah, so you have a coding standard with trivialities like how to format lines of code. (See my other post in this thread about why I don't like codified coding standards). One coder's triviality is anothers holy grail. Standardizing sounds good to me. No one is going to like everything but if everyone sticks to some basic things I don't see it as an issue. Strange. I see what you do when a standard isn't followed as one of the most important issues. It defines how serious a standard is taken. The idea of the policy would be that people follow that standard... cause that's how it is. The point of the standard is that it's to be adhered to. Code doesn't get merged to master unless it passes code review. Simple as that. People who can't deal with that have other issues as far as I'm concerned. Can't follow instructions? Then why are you working for someone else? I've heard that argument about wearing ties as well. If my job were to model ties, I'd agree. As it is, this seems like a bit of a red herring. About the use of whitespace? That's the example I'm using. I wasn't talking about not writing readable code. I was talking about not following the number of spaces the company standard dictates. You frame it as being about whitespace but it's really about adhering to a policy your employer puts in place. If there's a cogent argument about why NOT to it'd be heard but ultimately it's not their decision if management decides it's a good idea? Well, that was my question, wasn't? If you can't measure it, does it have a significant effect? Can't know until you try and, as I said, I'm perfectly open to suggestions. I don't see it being bad per se but I coudl be wrong. I don't know. If it had an obvious bad effect it could be abandoned. I still don't see the harm in trying. -- meraxes	[reply]
Re^2: Seeking Best Practices - does your company follow a standard? by cleverett (Friar) on May 06, 2010 at 17:43 UTC
Sanctions for not following a formatting standard, when perltidy can be set up to give you 95% of any reasonable format you desire? That's why it's a nonissue: people can just format the code with perltidy the way they like it as they work on it, then use the company standard perltidy profile when they commit the code to source control. There are other things that are nonnegotiable: using strictures, using the company source repos, unit tests, code reuse, etc. Doesn't matter how good a coder you are, your practices are part of your output, and if you can't fit into the team, then your boss has to question your continued employment.	[reply]