On Oct 18, 2006, at 5:33 PM, Robert Greig wrote:
On 18/10/06, Steve Vinoski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
What percentage of all the Java projects out there use coding
guidelines other than the Sun guidelines? I would guess it's very
very small, far less than 1%.
Is that a guess? Do you have any evidence to back that up?
Well, my sentence above does use the phrase "I would guess"... ;-)
I have just looked at a few Apache projects. Examples of ones that do
*not* follow the Sun standards (or at least appear not to based on a
viewing of some randomly selected files) are BCEL, Cactus, Commons
Configuration, ECS. I only looked at about 8 or 9 projects so that is
a rate of around 50% (in an admittedly very small sample space).
I don't know that reviewing random open source projects is the best
way to determine this, as many seem to be internally inconsistent
with respect to coding style because they don't enforce it with
automated rules.
Except that when I'm working on Qpid I have to remember to use the
right settings, which are different than all other Java projects I've
ever worked on...
My IDE of choice (Intellij) allows me to configure the coding standard
on a per-project basis.
IMO, nobody should ever be forced to have to rely on an IDE to get
things like this right.
>> Should it be corrected?
>
> You mean "changed". Corrected implies it is broken in some way.
I think it's broken in the sense that it's a deviation that adds
needless complication to Qpid development.
Only if you happen to work in an environment where everyone else uses
the standard you like.
This has nothing to do with personal preference -- I personally can
adapt to any style. This has to do with putting artificial hurdles in
the way of building the Qpid Java community. If 99+% of Java
developers expect to follow the Sun guidelines, then why make them
jump through hoops to work on Qpid?
That 99% number again. My scan of other projects shows a wide variety
of styles being adopted. This is just change for change's sake. For
every person who likes it there is likely to be someone who dislikes
it.
As I said, with coding standards I think it is important that we have
a standard and that it is enforced.
I agree, but you're missing an extremely critical point: the Sun
style is publicly documented on the web. Am I to guess what the rules
are for the JPMC coding style used on this code? Without a document
somewhere either in the project itself or on the wiki that explains
exactly what the rules are for the style we're using, we might as
well have no coding style whatsoever.
Also, assuming we're not changing the current style, I'd like to have
not only that document that explains the style rules, but I'd like to
put together and enforce checkstyle rules to ensure consistency
across the Java codebase, just as Alan's trying to do in the C++ code.
--steve
