Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#1

Post by berito » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 12:05 PM UTC

I am a humbly good programmer who always gets a good job done (speed/meeting specs) I do not care for other people's arbitrary coding conventions. Not do I care about wasting time writing tests. I hate camelCasing. Is it getDb() or getDB()? I don't care. Keep it as getdb() and don't waste my fucking time.

Now apparently my company will adopt strict code conventions and will make committing impossible if it doesn't meet the scheme. How have you got around this?

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#2

Post by facorreia » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 12:29 PM UTC

I got around this mindset along the years, by learning about the importance of lowering the maintenance costs, improving collaboration and not depending on any single person to understand any given module or system.

Books such as "Code Complete"[1] and "Clean Code"[2] should help you with that transition.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Const...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsman...

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#3

Post by bdfh42 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 12:39 PM UTC

Assuming that you work in a case sensitive programming language then conventions such as the one you identify are important for the net productivity of the whole team. Put yourself in the position of the team manager - what is best for the group?

If you are a "humbly good" programmer then you should be able to work with code conventions.

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#4

Post by jaachan » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:13 PM UTC

Would a pretty printer help?

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#5

Post by EliRivers » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:15 PM UTC

You could do everyone a favour by quitting. That way, you wouldn't have to adhere to standards, and they wouldn't have to put up with a prima donna.

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#6

Post by dotmanish » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:20 PM UTC

A rockstar in a rock band must play tunes others can follow.

I have seen numerous counts of "He is fast and efficient, but we end up suffering due to the (non) maintainability of his code", followed by "We had to let him go." or "He has been moved to this sole person project."

Your call.

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#7

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:31 PM UTC

jaachan wrote: post #4

Would a pretty printer help?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#8

Post by tluyben2 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:32 PM UTC

You are not posting this on Digitalpoint forums; you cannot expect people to 'help you' with this here on HN, right? Because it is important and most people here know it is.

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#9

Post by shortlived » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:33 PM UTC

I'm a programmer because I like solving problems and designing solutions. I could care less about language, coding standards, etc. You are focusing on the wrong thing, or, you really shouldn't be a programmer.

Re: Ask HN:working with a company with anal coding standards

#10

Post by debacle » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:41 PM UTC

What you're complaining about don't sound like anal coding standards. Anal coding standards is not being able to use HEREDOCs, not being allowed to write anonymous functions, being forced to use some stupid library that replaces the normal implementation of a language feature with a crappy, slower version.

Camelcase is something that you pretty much come to accept as soon as you start writing OO Perl.