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Gosh, I had heard jokes about naming conventions resulting in religious wars, but I had thought they were only jokes.

• cookiecaper 17y ago
  How I wish that were true. This is the second time in my relatively short professional life that I've come across an otherwise competent programmer that got so caught up in style conventions (opening bracket on new line or same line, etc.) that he was unable to see any value in or provide any value to anyone else on the team. At the other place, the guy was boss of IT/engineering and just resorted to hiring designers and giving them on-the-job programming training so that he could mandate the habits before they were set instead of trying to counteract extant tendencies. And that guy refused to even produce a formalized style guide. I quit after about a month. The programmer has in both instances been a relatively successful "lone wolf", self-taught programmer; he's built a successful business on his own right out of the gate, either as an independent freelancer or the technical savior to a struggling ad firm, and as such, has almost never been exposed to other styles, conventions, or thought processes, except those present in the (obviously unsatisfactory) systems he was hired to replace. I'd avoid bringing guys like this on anywhere without leadership willing and able to teach professional etiquette, courtesy, and mutual respect on the job.