Coding standards without control?
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A recent poll asked if programming standards are still in use in development organisations... and if they are controlled. None.........................20% Yes, but without control.....49% Yes, with control............31% Participants: 369 Source: Methods & Tools (http://www.methodsandtools.com) A majority of the participating organisations have coding standards... and a majority does not control them ;o) What is the situation at your location? Does this lack of control really hurt?
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A recent poll asked if programming standards are still in use in development organisations... and if they are controlled. None.........................20% Yes, but without control.....49% Yes, with control............31% Participants: 369 Source: Methods & Tools (http://www.methodsandtools.com) A majority of the participating organisations have coding standards... and a majority does not control them ;o) What is the situation at your location? Does this lack of control really hurt?
Even though we have standards, some are controlled (database end and middle tiers) and some are not (front end). This is mainly do to programmers abilities. Most senior level programmers do the back/middle tiers and lesser programmers do the UI, since it's usually easier.
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A recent poll asked if programming standards are still in use in development organisations... and if they are controlled. None.........................20% Yes, but without control.....49% Yes, with control............31% Participants: 369 Source: Methods & Tools (http://www.methodsandtools.com) A majority of the participating organisations have coding standards... and a majority does not control them ;o) What is the situation at your location? Does this lack of control really hurt?
Not sure what with control would imply. Something like an automated lint checker? Changing code to corect coding standards can obscur maintenance coding changes in source control systems. I once worked on a team where someone "fixed" the location of all the curly braces in the file where he corrected a bug. The team lead rolled back the changes asking the dev to redo with just his bug fix! We do have coding standards but for maintenance code I just follow the style being used as much as possible. There is no control on our coding standards. Some people handle this better then others. :)
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Even though we have standards, some are controlled (database end and middle tiers) and some are not (front end). This is mainly do to programmers abilities. Most senior level programmers do the back/middle tiers and lesser programmers do the UI, since it's usually easier.
edboe wrote:
Most senior level programmers do the back/middle tiers and lesser programmers do the UI, since it's usually easier.
Ouch. On our recent .Net app development I think the front-end code followed the coding standard better then the back-end. In VB.Net the environment takes care of indenting and captialisation. Some people writing the stored procs used a range of indenting styles and SQL commands were inconsistanly cased (even in the same file).
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A recent poll asked if programming standards are still in use in development organisations... and if they are controlled. None.........................20% Yes, but without control.....49% Yes, with control............31% Participants: 369 Source: Methods & Tools (http://www.methodsandtools.com) A majority of the participating organisations have coding standards... and a majority does not control them ;o) What is the situation at your location? Does this lack of control really hurt?
It is also common for there to be standards in place but with developers being unaware of this. I guess this is a subset of "Yes, but without control."
Kevin
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edboe wrote:
Most senior level programmers do the back/middle tiers and lesser programmers do the UI, since it's usually easier.
Ouch. On our recent .Net app development I think the front-end code followed the coding standard better then the back-end. In VB.Net the environment takes care of indenting and captialisation. Some people writing the stored procs used a range of indenting styles and SQL commands were inconsistanly cased (even in the same file).
I think coding standards should not focus on the things you describe here, which are style. It's more important that correct techniques are applied, e.g., in .NET, that unmanaged resources are handled properly with using or try-finally. Style tends to be subjective. I'd say by all means put recommendations in the coding standards document but don't go overboard in enforcing them.
Kevin
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Not sure what with control would imply. Something like an automated lint checker? Changing code to corect coding standards can obscur maintenance coding changes in source control systems. I once worked on a team where someone "fixed" the location of all the curly braces in the file where he corrected a bug. The team lead rolled back the changes asking the dev to redo with just his bug fix! We do have coding standards but for maintenance code I just follow the style being used as much as possible. There is no control on our coding standards. Some people handle this better then others. :)
Leah_Garrett wrote:
I just follow the style being used as much as possible.
Same here. Though sometimes I violate this, if the style is sufficiently awful, as it has been in some of the JavaScript I've been maintaining recently! In such cases I then try and make the surrounding section of code, e.g., a whole method, consistent re: layout.
Kevin
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edboe wrote:
Most senior level programmers do the back/middle tiers and lesser programmers do the UI, since it's usually easier.
Ouch. On our recent .Net app development I think the front-end code followed the coding standard better then the back-end. In VB.Net the environment takes care of indenting and captialisation. Some people writing the stored procs used a range of indenting styles and SQL commands were inconsistanly cased (even in the same file).