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FTA: "Kennedy said guides are common, but not to the clear and explicit length Carmack went in his guide, and that makes the difference." In my experience, thi

FTA: "Kennedy said guides are common, but not to the clear and explicit length Carmack went in his guide, and that makes the difference." In my experience, this is not uncommon, especially with C++ codebases. I've seen quite a few style guides that go in at least as much detail as Carmack's guide. Two publicly available guides that come to mind are the Google[1] and Webkit[2] style guides. Maybe it's just me, but I don't find the Doom 3 code style that exemplary or exceptional. [1] http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.x... [2] http://www.webkit.org/coding/coding-style.html http://www.webkit.org/coding/coding-style.html

jholman 14y ago
I agree that the style guide they link is pretty short and leaves a lot out. Although there were a few nice bits, I think. The really laughable bit in the article was "One of the reasons the Doom code is so readable is because ... Carmack set up a Coding Style document". Oh god, if only this was all it took. Actually, pretty near the entire article is a joke to anyone who's written more than 100 lines of professional code, and I'm astonished it's getting upvotes on HN. Also, why would anyone take seriously the opinions of professional educators on this? I happen to agree with all of their comments, but, unless they have maintenance experience, they are precisely the people least qualified to speak on this subject. Maybe get those quotes from tech leads or engineering managers at respected corporations that hire interns, that would mean something.