How much time should be spent on the little things
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I put out a programming style guide and the boss overruled a few things. For example I had call to a function as function_name( param1, param2 ); and my boss changed it to function_name (param1, param2); Honestly, to me it doesn't matter which way or even if both ways are used as long as an individual is consistent. However, I've written 8K SLOC in my style (before the guide came out) and now my boss wants me to "take however long it has to" to meet his style. BTW, no actual schedule relief is allowed and I'm supposed to be done this Monday. I can get the code working by COB Monday without his style guide changes to it. I may be another week of mind numbing work to change the spacing. So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style? (just to let you know, the boss was going to put out the style guide until it was 4 months late then gave me the task) Thanks Joe Q
Little things add up to big things. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. An avalanche is made up of pebbles. It only takes one. ... I could go on.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
I don't see it happening, at least not until it becomes pointless.
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I put out a programming style guide and the boss overruled a few things. For example I had call to a function as function_name( param1, param2 ); and my boss changed it to function_name (param1, param2); Honestly, to me it doesn't matter which way or even if both ways are used as long as an individual is consistent. However, I've written 8K SLOC in my style (before the guide came out) and now my boss wants me to "take however long it has to" to meet his style. BTW, no actual schedule relief is allowed and I'm supposed to be done this Monday. I can get the code working by COB Monday without his style guide changes to it. I may be another week of mind numbing work to change the spacing. So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style? (just to let you know, the boss was going to put out the style guide until it was 4 months late then gave me the task) Thanks Joe Q
I prefer your style. For some reason I like to have spacing around parentheses. For function calls, there is no space between the function name and the opening parenthesis; for statements which require parentheses around a condition, I leave a space between the keyword and the opening parenthesis. That is:
foo( bar );
for ( int i = 0; i < 4; ++i )
{
// statements
}As long as other programmers can read and understand it - that is, there are no egregious errors in formatting that lead to confusion, like erroneous indentation implying one block structure where in fact the language syntax imposes a different one - I'd ignore it. Example of error:
if ( condition )
statement1;
statement2;which implies (from the indentation) that statement2 will only be executed if condition is true, whereas it will actually always be executed. We don't actually have a coding standard in this area, although I don't think any of us use K&R bracing style - opening braces always get a line to themselves. I find placing the first line of a controlled block immediately after the control statement looks too compressed - I normally add a blank line after an
If condition Thenline in VB anyway.Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Little things add up to big things. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. An avalanche is made up of pebbles. It only takes one. ... I could go on.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
I don't see it happening, at least not until it becomes pointless.
Paul Watson wrote:
An avalanche is made up of pebbles.
There are a lot of sayings a long that line. I haven't seen many avalanches on flat ground no matter how many pebbles are there. My point is how much schedule should be sacrificed to do the little things? The schedule he came up with is already way to tight (bordering impossible) How many hours away from your family should be sacrificed for things like that? My family is more important to me.
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I prefer your style. For some reason I like to have spacing around parentheses. For function calls, there is no space between the function name and the opening parenthesis; for statements which require parentheses around a condition, I leave a space between the keyword and the opening parenthesis. That is:
foo( bar );
for ( int i = 0; i < 4; ++i )
{
// statements
}As long as other programmers can read and understand it - that is, there are no egregious errors in formatting that lead to confusion, like erroneous indentation implying one block structure where in fact the language syntax imposes a different one - I'd ignore it. Example of error:
if ( condition )
statement1;
statement2;which implies (from the indentation) that statement2 will only be executed if condition is true, whereas it will actually always be executed. We don't actually have a coding standard in this area, although I don't think any of us use K&R bracing style - opening braces always get a line to themselves. I find placing the first line of a controlled block immediately after the control statement looks too compressed - I normally add a blank line after an
If condition Thenline in VB anyway.Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Mike Dimmick wrote:
As long as other programmers can read and understand it - that is, there are no egregious errors in formatting that lead to confusion, like erroneous indentation implying one block structure where in fact the language syntax imposes a different one - I'd ignore it.
That is my point too. If someone can read "func_one (param);" and not "func_one( param );" they should probably go to marketing or some other job. Or at least have a cat scan (I'll get the cat! :laugh:)
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Paul Watson wrote:
An avalanche is made up of pebbles.
There are a lot of sayings a long that line. I haven't seen many avalanches on flat ground no matter how many pebbles are there. My point is how much schedule should be sacrificed to do the little things? The schedule he came up with is already way to tight (bordering impossible) How many hours away from your family should be sacrificed for things like that? My family is more important to me.
Joe Q wrote:
I haven't seen many avalanches on flat ground no matter how many pebbles are there.
If they pile up they become a mountain and then you'll get avalanches ;)
Joe Q wrote:
The schedule he came up with is already way to tight (bordering impossible) How many hours away from your family should be sacrificed for things like that? My family is more important to me.
Your boss should not be asking you to do this on your own time. But it sounds like your project has bigger problems than code style. Sounds like you need to talk to your boss about the project timeline and how it is not realistic, how it is sacrificing quality and how it is risky.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
I don't see it happening, at least not until it becomes pointless.
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Joe Q wrote:
I haven't seen many avalanches on flat ground no matter how many pebbles are there.
If they pile up they become a mountain and then you'll get avalanches ;)
Joe Q wrote:
The schedule he came up with is already way to tight (bordering impossible) How many hours away from your family should be sacrificed for things like that? My family is more important to me.
Your boss should not be asking you to do this on your own time. But it sounds like your project has bigger problems than code style. Sounds like you need to talk to your boss about the project timeline and how it is not realistic, how it is sacrificing quality and how it is risky.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
I don't see it happening, at least not until it becomes pointless.
Paul Watson wrote:
Your boss should not be asking you to do this on your own time.
You're right, but it's a fairly common practice at this place.
Paul Watson wrote:
But it sounds like your project has bigger problems than code style. Sounds like you need to talk to your boss about the project timeline and how it is not realistic, how it is sacrificing quality and how it is risky.
It does. The customer set the deadline and our management said "Yes, we can meet that" without checking with engineering. There's also a big problem with requirments creep, most of the programmers people are hardware guys and haven't done much software in the past. Yes, we have bigger problems but this one (software style) is one the boss can actually address and control.
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Paul Watson wrote:
An avalanche is made up of pebbles.
There are a lot of sayings a long that line. I haven't seen many avalanches on flat ground no matter how many pebbles are there. My point is how much schedule should be sacrificed to do the little things? The schedule he came up with is already way to tight (bordering impossible) How many hours away from your family should be sacrificed for things like that? My family is more important to me.
Joe Q wrote:
My point is how much schedule should be sacrificed to do the little things?
Well, I'd say, do the important things and see what's left on the schedule :-D
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Pierre Leclercq wrote:
fact he asks you to do it in one big chunk does not make too much sense
My boss isn't to big on the common sense thing. He sort of manages as he goes. He gave me a major chuck of code to do, then he started giving me other things to do (such as the style guide). Then, in a meeting with the customer he announced I was the software lead. BTW, I wasn't in the meeting and didn't figure out I was lead for a week after the meeting when I was going through the charts. I'm not a fan of the "Suprise!" style of management. He's a good software guy, but not necessarily a good manager.
Joe Q wrote:
Then, in a meeting with the customer he announced I was the software lead.
Arf arf arf!!!! :laugh: :laugh: It's like everybody knows you're in charge, except ... you!
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Joe Q wrote:
My point is how much schedule should be sacrificed to do the little things?
Well, I'd say, do the important things and see what's left on the schedule :-D
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Joe Q wrote:
Then, in a meeting with the customer he announced I was the software lead.
Arf arf arf!!!! :laugh: :laugh: It's like everybody knows you're in charge, except ... you!
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Paul Watson wrote:
Your boss should not be asking you to do this on your own time.
You're right, but it's a fairly common practice at this place.
Paul Watson wrote:
But it sounds like your project has bigger problems than code style. Sounds like you need to talk to your boss about the project timeline and how it is not realistic, how it is sacrificing quality and how it is risky.
It does. The customer set the deadline and our management said "Yes, we can meet that" without checking with engineering. There's also a big problem with requirments creep, most of the programmers people are hardware guys and haven't done much software in the past. Yes, we have bigger problems but this one (software style) is one the boss can actually address and control.
Joe Q wrote:
Yes, we have bigger problems but this one (software style) is one the boss can actually address and control.
It should be prioritised along with all the other development tasks in the project. You then work by priority during work hours. I'd tell him that there are higher priority items to do first and that non-work hours are filled with raising your family. If he doesn't understand that then I'm afraid you don't have a reasonable boss and none of us can help much with advice.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
I don't see it happening, at least not until it becomes pointless.
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Joe Q wrote:
Yes, we have bigger problems but this one (software style) is one the boss can actually address and control.
It should be prioritised along with all the other development tasks in the project. You then work by priority during work hours. I'd tell him that there are higher priority items to do first and that non-work hours are filled with raising your family. If he doesn't understand that then I'm afraid you don't have a reasonable boss and none of us can help much with advice.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
I don't see it happening, at least not until it becomes pointless.
Paul Watson wrote:
I'd tell him that there are higher priority items to do first and that non-work hours are filled with raising your family. If he doesn't understand that then I'm afraid you don't have a reasonable boss and none of us can help much with advice.
In many cases he is not a reasonable boss. He used to be an Engineer but when he became a boss, he seemed to forget what it was like to actually have to do the work. I think I'm going to put this on my 2010 todo list. (That's what I tell people when I don't plan on doing something)
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I put out a programming style guide and the boss overruled a few things. For example I had call to a function as function_name( param1, param2 ); and my boss changed it to function_name (param1, param2); Honestly, to me it doesn't matter which way or even if both ways are used as long as an individual is consistent. However, I've written 8K SLOC in my style (before the guide came out) and now my boss wants me to "take however long it has to" to meet his style. BTW, no actual schedule relief is allowed and I'm supposed to be done this Monday. I can get the code working by COB Monday without his style guide changes to it. I may be another week of mind numbing work to change the spacing. So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style? (just to let you know, the boss was going to put out the style guide until it was 4 months late then gave me the task) Thanks Joe Q
This is the real WTFOTD: Your boss wants to risk the introduction of bugs for the zero benefit of a few brackets being rearranged because he couldn't be bothered to write the style guide before you started coding. Tell him it's too late. Tell him it'll take 3 months to restyle it. Tell him his style isn't supported by Microsoft. Tell him anything to avoid having to do this astonishingly stupid requirement. Anyway, it's the comments that are important, not the spacing of the brackets. You did comment the code, right? ;)
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I put out a programming style guide and the boss overruled a few things. For example I had call to a function as function_name( param1, param2 ); and my boss changed it to function_name (param1, param2); Honestly, to me it doesn't matter which way or even if both ways are used as long as an individual is consistent. However, I've written 8K SLOC in my style (before the guide came out) and now my boss wants me to "take however long it has to" to meet his style. BTW, no actual schedule relief is allowed and I'm supposed to be done this Monday. I can get the code working by COB Monday without his style guide changes to it. I may be another week of mind numbing work to change the spacing. So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style? (just to let you know, the boss was going to put out the style guide until it was 4 months late then gave me the task) Thanks Joe Q
Setting a new style for new work and sticking to it may be productive. Modifying existing code to meet a style for something as trivial as a space is a clear sign of madness or a company that has so little work to do that they can spend time screwing around with what is (let's be honest here) entirely pointless. I wonder if the shareholders know how their expensive developer resources are being spent?
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This is the real WTFOTD: Your boss wants to risk the introduction of bugs for the zero benefit of a few brackets being rearranged because he couldn't be bothered to write the style guide before you started coding. Tell him it's too late. Tell him it'll take 3 months to restyle it. Tell him his style isn't supported by Microsoft. Tell him anything to avoid having to do this astonishingly stupid requirement. Anyway, it's the comments that are important, not the spacing of the brackets. You did comment the code, right? ;)
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I put out a programming style guide and the boss overruled a few things. For example I had call to a function as function_name( param1, param2 ); and my boss changed it to function_name (param1, param2); Honestly, to me it doesn't matter which way or even if both ways are used as long as an individual is consistent. However, I've written 8K SLOC in my style (before the guide came out) and now my boss wants me to "take however long it has to" to meet his style. BTW, no actual schedule relief is allowed and I'm supposed to be done this Monday. I can get the code working by COB Monday without his style guide changes to it. I may be another week of mind numbing work to change the spacing. So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style? (just to let you know, the boss was going to put out the style guide until it was 4 months late then gave me the task) Thanks Joe Q
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Simon Capewell wrote:
You did comment the code, right?
Comments...what's that? :laugh: Yes, the code is fairly well commented. Actually, I'm probably going to tell him it's on my 2010 to do list (what I tell people when I don't want to do something).
2010 is less than 3 years 2 months away. I'm already using my 2020 to-do list.
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I put out a programming style guide and the boss overruled a few things. For example I had call to a function as function_name( param1, param2 ); and my boss changed it to function_name (param1, param2); Honestly, to me it doesn't matter which way or even if both ways are used as long as an individual is consistent. However, I've written 8K SLOC in my style (before the guide came out) and now my boss wants me to "take however long it has to" to meet his style. BTW, no actual schedule relief is allowed and I'm supposed to be done this Monday. I can get the code working by COB Monday without his style guide changes to it. I may be another week of mind numbing work to change the spacing. So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style? (just to let you know, the boss was going to put out the style guide until it was 4 months late then gave me the task) Thanks Joe Q
Joe Q wrote:
So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style?
Is you're boss a dev or wants to pretend he's one (I've seen that before too). If he has no real reason other than he likes his style better, then welcome to micro management hell.
Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]
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Setting a new style for new work and sticking to it may be productive. Modifying existing code to meet a style for something as trivial as a space is a clear sign of madness or a company that has so little work to do that they can spend time screwing around with what is (let's be honest here) entirely pointless. I wonder if the shareholders know how their expensive developer resources are being spent?
John Cardinal wrote:
company that has so little work to do that they can spend time screwing around with what is (let's be honest here) entirely pointless.
Yeah, I get the impression the boss wants to play developer from this.
Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]
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I put out a programming style guide and the boss overruled a few things. For example I had call to a function as function_name( param1, param2 ); and my boss changed it to function_name (param1, param2); Honestly, to me it doesn't matter which way or even if both ways are used as long as an individual is consistent. However, I've written 8K SLOC in my style (before the guide came out) and now my boss wants me to "take however long it has to" to meet his style. BTW, no actual schedule relief is allowed and I'm supposed to be done this Monday. I can get the code working by COB Monday without his style guide changes to it. I may be another week of mind numbing work to change the spacing. So how much time should be spent doing the little things such as changing style? (just to let you know, the boss was going to put out the style guide until it was 4 months late then gave me the task) Thanks Joe Q
Entirely superficial changes like whitespace...you shouldn't spend more than a few seconds changing from one style to another. Find a beautifier that does that for you?
It's frustrating being a genius and living the life of a moron!!!