5 ms·

There are arguments for and against tabs and spaces. Crockford mentions one of these arguments and concludes that everyone should use spaces. Similarly for othe

There are arguments for and against tabs and spaces. Crockford mentions one of these arguments and concludes that everyone should use spaces. Similarly for other "conventions". I would rather replace the whole article with "Write readable code". Following these conventions are neither sufficient or necessary to accomplish that.

asjo 17y ago
There are arguments for and against tabs and spaces. ... and if you don't want to rehash those arguments, jwz has a nice summary: http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html
- sesqu 17y ago
  I found that summary wholly unconvincing, and very disparate from how I might summarize the arguments. I guess that's just how these things go.
gjm11 17y ago
1. The people for whom "Write readable code" is sufficient guidance are the same people for whom that guidance isn't needed in the first place. 2. For a body of code written by multiple people to be readable, it helps considerably if the conventions those people follow are consistent. A document like this one can help with that. 3. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect that the author of a document like this should provide all the counter-arguments to every position he takes. It's not an in-depth analysis of what constitutes good JavaScript code, it's just a set of coding conventions.
- abstractbill 17y ago
  For a body of code written by multiple people to be readable, it helps considerably if the conventions those people follow are consistent. I'm not convinced of this (at least it doesn't hold true for me). I used to believe it, mostly because it seems to be common wisdom. But I've realized over time that I can just as easily read code that's written using K&R style braces, or BSD style, or even Whitesmiths, and it really doesn't matter to me whether indentation is 2, 4, or 8 spaces. I think some of my point of view comes from being a heavy Emacs user and having written a lot of Lisp code in the past. I don't tend to see braces/parens much for example - I let the editor take care of them.
  - Legion 17y ago
    In terms of reading a complete body of code in one style or another, I agree. What is annoying and distracting is having conflicting styles in the same single chunk of code. Sort of like how I would not want a book to randomly change line spacing, character spacing, etc. from paragraph to paragraph. I don't really care what the spacings are, and I certainly have no problem going from one book to another where these are totally different, but I do not want them flip-flopping around in the text of a single book.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    I can easily read code that's written with 2, 4, or 8 space indentation. I can't read code that's written with 2, 4, or 8 space indentation at the same time. The most important part about code conventions is that you have them. It really doesn't matter what they are. In fact, I wish fewer styleguides would pretend to be right and more would just acknowledge that they're simply whatever the originator prefers. But it's still very important that everyone agrees to follow them, even if they disagree with some of the individual aspects.

asjo 17y ago

There are arguments for and against tabs and spaces. ... and if you don't want to rehash those arguments, jwz has a nice summary: http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html

sesqu 17y ago
I found that summary wholly unconvincing, and very disparate from how I might summarize the arguments. I guess that's just how these things go.

gjm11 17y ago

1. The people for whom "Write readable code" is sufficient guidance are the same people for whom that guidance isn't needed in the first place. 2. For a body of code written by multiple people to be readable, it helps considerably if the conventions those people follow are consistent. A document like this one can help with that. 3. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect that the author of a document like this should provide all the counter-arguments to every position he takes. It's not an in-depth analysis of what constitutes good JavaScript code, it's just a set of coding conventions.

abstractbill 17y ago
For a body of code written by multiple people to be readable, it helps considerably if the conventions those people follow are consistent. I'm not convinced of this (at least it doesn't hold true for me). I used to believe it, mostly because it seems to be common wisdom. But I've realized over time that I can just as easily read code that's written using K&R style braces, or BSD style, or even Whitesmiths, and it really doesn't matter to me whether indentation is 2, 4, or 8 spaces. I think some of my point of view comes from being a heavy Emacs user and having written a lot of Lisp code in the past. I don't tend to see braces/parens much for example - I let the editor take care of them.
- Legion 17y ago
  In terms of reading a complete body of code in one style or another, I agree. What is annoying and distracting is having conflicting styles in the same single chunk of code. Sort of like how I would not want a book to randomly change line spacing, character spacing, etc. from paragraph to paragraph. I don't really care what the spacings are, and I certainly have no problem going from one book to another where these are totally different, but I do not want them flip-flopping around in the text of a single book.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  I can easily read code that's written with 2, 4, or 8 space indentation. I can't read code that's written with 2, 4, or 8 space indentation at the same time. The most important part about code conventions is that you have them. It really doesn't matter what they are. In fact, I wish fewer styleguides would pretend to be right and more would just acknowledge that they're simply whatever the originator prefers. But it's still very important that everyone agrees to follow them, even if they disagree with some of the individual aspects.