On 2013-11-19 22:21, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
It's not a minor detail. Besides, people took time to explain this to you, and the right response is to integrate that information, not to demean it.
I think so. I've not magically become a better programmer just because I know this information. I can also tell you that a lot of programmers have no idea what's the difference between an expression and a statement. Many have not even header of those words.
The first person that said that an expression ending with a semicolon is a statement was David, and my reply was "Ok, I didn't know that.". What's so demeaning about that?
That's exactly my point. The matter of fact is, in a setting where people are paid to write code, this kind of minor issue would be settled around the first week since hiring. At Facebook for example you'd be submitting a phabricator diff (loosely equivalent to a github pull request) and our linter will point out we use two spaces for indentation instead of tabs, and 80 columns. Then a couple of peers would point out that code is about twice as sparse vertically than it should. You'd fix these issues for good and that would be that. This has happened quite a few times. If, on the other hand, you chose to make a big deal out of it, that would be a cultural mismatch that to my knowledge would be unprecedented.
Don't you think I can adapt to a particular style that a company or project is using?
I can tell you that I would love to have code reviews like you have at Facebook. We have just started using code reviews at my work, it only took me three _years_ to get to that.
I can also say that we have lines with over 400 columns, I hate it. But it's there because no one cared enough.
I think it would be insulting if someone about to hire me can't see through the formatting of my code and base a decision on that. I would have no interest in working for someone like that. I don't even want to know what other strange things that can be hiding in that company behaving like that.
Who said your style is a better one that I should follow. I should just stop this because it doesn't lead anywhere. -- /Jacob Carlborg
