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“… found it extremely difficult dealing with bug fixes and feature requests relating to the other developer's code, who used a substantially different coding st

by cudgy 2y ago

“… found it extremely difficult dealing with bug fixes and feature requests relating to the other developer's code, who used a substantially different coding style. In the end we had to rewrite all our plugins for Construct 3, and so we ended up rewriting all the code anyway, which was particularly challenging given we hadn't written it ourselves in the first place and didn't have a deep understanding of how it worked. It's far easier now it's all our own code.” I love this article and agree with almost all of it. However, this portion I find to be guilty of elitist programming mantra. The bottom line is when you’re dealing with large code bases, there will be different coding styles present and the likelihood of everyone agreeing on a single coding style is virtually nil. Insistence on coding purity is an issue that can erode camaraderie in a team and develop into petty political in-fighting. Handling this problem in a tactful way is one of the keys to success in large code bases, as developers have their own styles and draconian insistence upon a single style can limit the talent that’s willing to work with you and your team.

mannyv 2y ago
There are coding styles that are mainstream, then there are coding styles that are not. I worked with a guy who insisted in writing his C code in expect style because it was fun. Probably not the greatest choice for long-term maintenance.
- cpeterso 2y ago
  What is "expect style"? Like Expect scripts in the Tcl scripting language?
  - mannyv 2y ago
    yes
dml2135 2y ago
I read this part as the author saying very diplomatically that this code was flat out bad and obscure, and not simply a different style or paradigm. I think your point holds if it was in fact the latter, but with the lengths the author goes to to stress the important of diplomatic language elsewhere in the article, I think they were just being polite to their former contractors here.
- cudgy 2y ago
  Yet, if I recall, they accepted the code into their source tree, but later judged that the style was so foreign to them that they were unable or at least unwilling to refactor or use the code in anyway. Seems if the code was flat out bad it would’ve been rejected initially.

by cudgy 2y ago

mannyv 2y ago

There are coding styles that are mainstream, then there are coding styles that are not. I worked with a guy who insisted in writing his C code in expect style because it was fun. Probably not the greatest choice for long-term maintenance.

cpeterso 2y ago
What is "expect style"? Like Expect scripts in the Tcl scripting language?
- mannyv 2y ago
  yes

dml2135 2y ago

I read this part as the author saying very diplomatically that this code was flat out bad and obscure, and not simply a different style or paradigm. I think your point holds if it was in fact the latter, but with the lengths the author goes to to stress the important of diplomatic language elsewhere in the article, I think they were just being polite to their former contractors here.

cudgy 2y ago
Yet, if I recall, they accepted the code into their source tree, but later judged that the style was so foreign to them that they were unable or at least unwilling to refactor or use the code in anyway. Seems if the code was flat out bad it would’ve been rejected initially.