Is there a way to measure programming style?

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Originally Posted by anon

To satisfy everybody, the board software might have code reformaters where you can define your own styles.

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Good luck. No one's gotten anywhere with syntax highlighting, which would be considerably easier (some plugins already exist for it, for example); so I can't see that ever happening in the forseeable future. :)

I'm not going to say what style I personally use here. If anyone's interested they can easily find examples of my code, such as codeform, and discover it for themselves. I've never really programmed in any other coding style. (That's what automatic indenters are for!) But whenever I read code that's in a different style, it bugs me for a while, and then I get used to it. I imagine the same would happen if I wrote code in a different style.

Indentation is just habit. And everyone has their own habits. And habits can be changed, though it might involve a bit of effort. :)

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Originally Posted by anon

What if I like completely random spacing because that would keep me alert and awake?

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LOL! Good one.

I hate it when people call things foo.
It sounds it's written by either a child or a kung fu fanatic or a lunatic.
You just know the rest of the code is going to be overblown nonsense.
Apart from that it's fine.

You might read this to understand why and where it is appropriate to name things foo.

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Originally Posted by esbo

I hate it when people call things foo.
It sounds it's written by either a child or a kung fu fanatic or a lunatic.
You just know the rest of the code is going to be overblown nonsense.
Apart from that it's fine.

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Exactly! I never ever write that ridiculous name. If I can't think of a descriptive name for an example, I just use func(). I actually knew a guy who got an intern position doing some coding, and the very first function he was asked to write -- guess what he named it? :D

foo is perfect for examples, because you instantly know if it shows up in some real production code, then the programmer wasn't really paying attention, and just cribbing examples off the net.

It's a meta variable, a place holder, which means it needs to be replaced with something meaningful when used in a concrete context.

void foo ( void );
void abstractMetaSyntacticExample( void );
Which do you prefer?

I prefer -

Code:

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#define ImALameRetardThatGankedSomeCodeOfTheInterwebAndDidntEvenBotherToReadTheFunctionNames foo
 
void ImALameRetardThatGankedSomeCodeOfTheInterwebAndDidntEvenBotherToReadTheFunctionNames();

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:D

I would define it the other way round and hope it features in nice error messages.

Code:

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#define foo ImALameRetardThatGankedSomeCodeOfTheInterwebAndDidntEvenBotherToReadTheFunctionNames

int main(void)
{
    foo();
    return 0;
}

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But using foo() just reinforces a newbie's belief (or lack of knowing better) that function & variable names don't need to have meaningful names. I'd rather teach them right from the start to always use a meaningful name, of which foo() is not.

If they are used for examples, they don't do anything meaningful either. They're mostly used for syntactic explanations anyway.

I'd measure it by the size of your head * the size of your balls

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Originally Posted by Salem

Code:

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if ( something )
    doAbit();
    ofThis();
else
    doSomeMore();
    ofThat();

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From a human perspective, there's been no loss of information. All the detail needed to still work out what's going on is still there.

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I believe this is what Python has done with great success. If you dont indent correctly (IDE helps) it wont compile. At least this is what I heard, havent checked python myself

Yes, that is the case for Python.

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Originally Posted by cpjust

But using foo() just reinforces a newbie's belief (or lack of knowing better) that function & variable names don't need to have meaningful names. I'd rather teach them right from the start to always use a meaningful name, of which foo() is not.

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Only in this case, the function has no value whatsoever; the function itself is undefined so we don't even know what it does. When there's a real function in an example, it's to be named properly. Otherwise I don't see the problem in naming it foo.

>I'd measure it by the size of your head * the size of your balls
Using that measure, I'd be screwed. ;)