Thread: Indentation style and personality

Originally Posted by Elkvis

absolutely, but being able to look at the code someone writes, and based on the bracket/indentation style, and know more detailed personality information, would add another dimension to screening applicants.

Or bring out some new kind of dystopian reality I don't feel much comfortable with.

In any case, that would defeat all that has been advanced so far; That one should choose their style and be consistent with it. In this imaginary scenario where we would be screened also based on how we style our code, it would probably be a bad idea to stick to your preferences. Soon enough we would be formatted to a "safe style", one that would give a job. Considering that really it's not difficult to change styles (for instance, I use two completely different coding styles whether I'm doing C# or C++), I find this whole idea pretty mute.

I remember one team member who would check code out of the repository, hack away, and run it through a beautifier before checking it back in. One did not want to look over her shoulder when she was editing.

Originally Posted by twiki

I've avoided learning Python because the interpreter is very picky about indentation. The TAB width etc. have to be just right or you get errors.

So rather than editing my preferences for vim, I just decided that Python wasn't for me.

I don't know if that has changed with Python since, but I've not bothered to check.

There are some hypothetical problems you could encounter because of how Python processes indentation. In practice, I haven't had any issues in over 10 years of using it.

If you can't maintain consistent indentation, that's between you and your text editor.

Originally Posted by Elkvis

absolutely, but being able to look at the code someone writes, and based on the bracket/indentation style, and know more detailed personality information, would add another dimension to screening applicants.

"What is your preferred indentation style" is not a relevant question. "Can you follow the indentation standard used on this project" is a relevant question.

To pass judgment on someone's indentation style, without even bothering to ask if they mind changing how they indent, would be incredibly unfair, bordering on ludicrous.

Originally Posted by Elkvis

way out of context on what I was getting at. I wouldn't advocate using coding style exclusively to determine a candidate's eligibility. it's just another tool in the box.

You can tell a whole lot about someone's personality by their gender as well, but I think we all agree that that's off limits. It's not like I've thought about this much until today, but indentation is another one of those "might matter, but let's not go there" sort of things.

If a person can't indent according to project guidelines, that is a management problem, not an indentation problem.