4 ms·
Why is less-than-obviously stupid consistency better than choice?
by eviks 3y ago
Why is less-than-obviously stupid consistency better than choice?
- mplewis 3y agoPeople bikeshed given choices. When people have one choice, they get onto writing code that actually matters.
- eviks 3y agoThe more realistic outcome is they get onto bikeshedding other choices like pickigng a more configurable tool since, you know, you haven't actually eliminated choices, just reduced them without constraining: infinity - 1 = infinity
- williamdclt 3y agoDidn't happen in the ~dozen team I worked with, so I wouldn't say it's the "more realistic outcome"
- j4yav 3y agoPeople who can’t help but bikeshed will consistently find themselves surrounded by bikeshedding
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoVery true. Tools are often abandoned for being too restrictive and I’ve seen it several times just with formatters alone.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- silviot 3y agoBecause otherwise you spend too much time arguing about not-so-important matters (in a word: bikeshed - you end up bikeshedding less).
- watwut 3y agoBecause it saves time and sanity. First, you don't have to deal with endless debates about stupid crap every other code review. Second, local wanna be controlling personalities have less space to nitpick choices of others and other do not have to deal with them.
- williamdclt 3y agoGiven it's Prettier's whole philosophy, best to read from them directly: - https://prettier.io/docs/en/why-prettier https://prettier.io/docs/en/why-prettier - https://prettier.io/docs/en/option-philosophy https://prettier.io/docs/en/option-philosophy
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoPrettier makes some obviously stupid choices though. That coupled with their disregard for their users is why I don’t use it. I switched to Rome (now Biome) after this debacle: https://github.com/prettier/prettier/issues/840 https://github.com/prettier/prettier/issues/840
- williamdclt 3y agoWhether they do make obviously stupid choices or not doesn't invalidate the principle. As to whether they do make obviously stupid choices - I personally don't mind any of their choices (even if I wouldn't have made the same choice myself), and I know I'm not alone in this position, which means that by definition they're not "obviously" stupid. You can disagree with the choices and the trade-offs, sure, that doesn't make it obviously stupid.
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoI detailed the reasons at length in the issue thread. It might not be obvious if you haven’t seen the code examples, but once you see it, it’s pretty clear. I also completely disagree with your reasoning above. The fact that many people believe or do some thing does not mean that “by definition” that that thing is not obviously stupid. E.g., inhaling glue, smashing things with one’s head, “the secret”, mukbang videos… the list is nearly endless. Finally, “the principle” behind Prettier is also flawed when taken to the extreme they do. Paraphrasing my final comment on the github issue, > It can be used to defend literally any styling choices, even ones that deliberately misaligned conditional branches with others at its logical level (much like prettier already is doing on a small scale in the example I referenced). > Yes human beings are adaptable, but some things are easier to adapt to than others. It's objectively easier to spell Spanish than English, for example. It pays off to have consistency at a deeper level than simply making the same idiosyncratic choices each time an identical situation comes up.
- ToValueFunfetti 3y agoI used to work in a restaurant where the thing that held the knives was agnostic about which direction the blade faced. It's quite beneficial to know which direction the knife is facing when grabbing it, so we wanted to establish a standard. There was a lengthy discussion about which was better, we picked one, then we had to train the rest of the staff and remember to tell new hires. And people still forgot, so having a standard was pointless. If the knife storage had been opinionated, we would have expended no effort and achieved consistency. The choice of direction was essentially arbitrary, but making a choice and sticking to it was valuable.