+1 It comes down to proper coding and using code that's been written properly. If the (other) author is negligent about not adding semi-colons where needed, then I think there's potentially a bigger issue at hand... and more bugs that you'll be left to fix.
I'll see you in church, Ger. ~Philip On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 10:30 AM, Ger Hobbelt <[email protected]> wrote: > On the + ! ; youpicksomethingbaby prefix discussion: > > I'm strongly biased towards not doing it at all. Yes, I hear you when you > give the argument for it: 'external sources may need it'. > But I won't 'comply' with their apparent crappiness. Yes, I use that word, > because I've worked long enough in IT to have found a correlation between > 'deteriorated formatting' which requires the _receiver_ to patch things up > to make the combo work, and 'deteriorated coding', nay, > 'deteriorated architecture and design', which is a major cause for hard to > fix bugs in both development /and/ production environments. Where > production+bug==triple headache. > > In short: I take the offending external input and fix /that/ one. The other > way around, which is really saying I am obliged to add some sort of > 'recovery hack' prefix to my code to patch up someone else's > assumed/expected cruftiness, is adding additional garbage to the already > incoming assumed-to-be-garbage[*]. If you don't mind, I'll go and do the > entropy thing that way when I'm dead. ;-) > > [*] They never told me I was working in the garbage processing industry. I > always wondered... now this explains why I need noseplugs during the warmer > days. > > > For those who reel at this strong opinion: forget my opinion, consider > this: if you use such a hack in your code, you may do it because it seems > the fastest way out of the conundrum. You're right, of course, but given > modern revision control systems, you can have the same speed of development > when you clean up the few offenders that made you do this in the first > place: external or not, these sources should exist in your repository > somewhere anyway (project history management for maintenance) and you can > create and track a mainline very cheaply these days, while you 'fix' that > missing trailing semicolon in [your branch of] _their_ code file instead of > cluttering yours all over the place on a generalized assumption. And, yeah, > it's a 'cleanliness of mind' sort of argument. Flip a coin, see what works > for you. > > Fortunately for me, I've found git, which, after a long search and many > failures, is my first revision control system in 2+ decades of software > development work that actually does have some 'sensible smarts' when it > comes to 'track changes' (and merging back branches into main development > lines). For my workflow, it is the best, because it does not dictate any > 'default layout/process' whatsoever while allowing multiple folks to happily > work on the same thing. > > > Anyway, that's my religion. Consider all of them, then pick your own path. > Maybe I'll see you in my parish one day, maybe not. Both is fine, just make > sure you're happy with what you pick. > > Cheers, > > > -- > Met vriendelijke groeten / Best regards, > > Ger Hobbelt > > -------------------------------------------------- > web: http://www.hobbelt.com/ > http://www.hebbut.net/ > mail: [email protected] > mobile: +31-6-11 120 978 > -------------------------------------------------- > >
