Comments on: We Need Standards

By: Consistency in the code base at Mark Needham

Consistency in the code base at Mark Needham — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:41:00 +0000

[...] with various different colleagues about coding consistency over the last year or so and Pat Kua and Frank Trindade have both written posts suggesting that we should look to have coding standards on projects in [...]

By: What’s the Tech Lead Doing Anyway ? | Agile Software Development

What’s the Tech Lead Doing Anyway ? | Agile Software Development — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:44:25 +0000

[...] sure the project has a common face – Standards are important IMO, and making sure the project still makes sense as a whole, avoiding knowledge silos it’s the [...]

By: Delaney

Delaney — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:22:45 +0000

The problem as i see it is that Programming is an art and applying standards of any type would be analogous to asking Leonardo Da Vinci to constrain him self to a certain stroke and canvass. The inherent problem in our industry is that like artist some people have different degrees of talent and different ways of expression so the idea of code standards Although i my own option a good one will only be adopted by a thew and not by the mass so will have little effect on the majority of projects, But this phenomenon of only a thew enlightened individuals using sensible techniques is what keeps my rates high and Agile community /Religion Going! so long may it continue lol

By: thekua.com@work » Death by a thousand differences

thekua.com@work » Death by a thousand differences — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:01:21 +0000

[...] One of the most common smells I see on projects is the desire to do things slightly differently for no good reason. Triggered by many different reasons such as new people joining a project, or when new functionality is being added, or when bugs need to be fixed. Each individual difference isn’t a problem on its own, rather it’s their accumulative effect that has a significant negative impact on projects that force developers to continually context switch when trying to match their mental model against the code or to navigate their way around a new area in the system. I find the death by a thousand differences is especially a significant problem on iterative projects where change happens rapidly such as the project Frankie describes. [...]

By: franktrindade

franktrindade — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:31:55 +0000

@Anthony

I dont want the old code to be changed, and definitely agree with you about changing it if we touch it again.

But despite still having different coding standards throughout time, we have one way of implementing one thing at any given moment. And I believe that this is much better that everyone implementing things their way…

Cheers

By: Anthony Williams

Anthony Williams — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:14:12 +0000

If your standards can change through a project, how does that help the “many different ways of implementing the same thing” problem? Do you go back and rewrite everything that uses the old way when you find a new improved way?

Personally, I’m OK with leaving the code that uses “the old way” alone until I next need to touch it, but it does mean that my codebases might still have several ways of implementing the same thing.

By: franktrindade

franktrindade — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:07:04 +0000

@bruno

Agreed again.

I think is easy to miss the point, but, as you noticed, I’m not supporting micromanagement, even because I don’t believe these standards should be set by one specific person, but by all members of the team reaching an agreement on “the most common way to implement things”, as you said.

Cheers

By: Bruno

Bruno — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:11:59 +0000

I agree with you point, but definitely not with your terms. I think it’s really easy to miss the point when using works like “standards”. It has a powerful connection with “micromanagement” or “top-down decision making” etc.
I think it’s safer to say that in each project the developers should reach an agreement about the most common way to implement things – write it down, and use it when possible. Done.
(because, of course, the point here is to reduce the number of different styles to a “manageable number” – not to eliminate all different approaches!)

Cheers,
Bruno

By: franktrindade

franktrindade — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:55:46 +0000

Agreed!

I just think that this idea isn’t applied that much in the software world. At least not pratically.

Cheers,
Francisco

By: Daniel Wildt

Daniel Wildt — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:17:18 +0000

One thing I’m discussing a lot lately is about standards… the thing is that I don’t see problems using standards. The problem is to standardize…

Here is one post I like, about this subject.
http://www.leanblog.org/2008/05/standard-vs-standardized.html