←back to thread

Software development topics I've changed my mind on

(chriskiehl.com)
873 points belter | 1 comments | 05 Feb 25 09:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.27s | source
Show context
latexr ◴[05 Feb 25 11:39 UTC] No.42947128[source]▶
> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are

> (…)

> People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things.

What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not necessarily the ground truth.

What you’re essentially saying is “cherish the people who care up to the level I personally and subjectively think is right, and dismiss everyone who cares more as insane weirdos who cannot prioritise”.

replies(64): >>42947180 #>>42947185 #>>42947187 #>>42947236 #>>42947241 #>>42947385 #>>42947445 #>>42947527 #>>42947549 #>>42947550 #>>42947776 #>>42947831 #>>42947871 #>>42948239 #>>42948415 #>>42948549 #>>42948597 #>>42948603 #>>42948816 #>>42948889 #>>42949006 #>>42949205 #>>42949721 #>>42949848 #>>42950103 #>>42950597 #>>42951017 #>>42951417 #>>42951446 #>>42951888 #>>42951983 #>>42952213 #>>42952396 #>>42952951 #>>42952983 #>>42953095 #>>42953185 #>>42953920 #>>42956368 #>>42956749 #>>42956933 #>>42957674 #>>42957827 #>>42958578 #>>42959426 #>>42959516 #>>42959604 #>>42959832 #>>42959898 #>>42960492 #>>42961062 #>>42961380 #>>42962073 #>>42962322 #>>42962379 #>>42962529 #>>42962821 #>>42963089 #>>42963205 #>>42963258 #>>42964858 #>>42964922 #>>42966606 #>>42974258 #
hliyan ◴[05 Feb 25 12:26 UTC] No.42947527[source]▶
There's another way to look at this: if you consider the school of thought that says that the code is the design, and compilation is the construction process, then stressing over code style is equivalent to stressing over the formatting and conventions of the blueprint (to use a civil engineering metaphor), instead of stressing over load bearing, material costs and utility of the space.

I'm fond of saying that anything that doesn't survive the compilation process is not design but code organization. Design would be: which data structures to use (list, map, array etc.), which data to keep in memory, which data to load/save and when, which algorithms to use, how to handle concurrency etc. Keeping the code organized is useful and is a part of basic hygiene, but it's far from the defining characteristic of the craft.

replies(20): >>42947540 #>>42947576 #>>42947599 #>>42947739 #>>42947770 #>>42947773 #>>42948888 #>>42949256 #>>42949591 #>>42949745 #>>42951412 #>>42951450 #>>42952786 #>>42955720 #>>42956620 #>>42957839 #>>42958226 #>>42959595 #>>42961043 #>>42964637 #
1. chausen ◴[06 Feb 25 01:30 UTC] No.42957839[source]▶
I overall agree. The one thing I will say is that what you call code organization (anything pre-compilation) also includes structuring the code to improve maintainability, extensibility, and testability. I would therefore disagree that code organization is only basic hygiene, not part of design, and not a large part of the “craft” (use of that word is something I’ve changed my opinion on—while it feels good to think of it that way, it leads to exactly the thing we’re discussing; putting too much emphasis on unimportant things).

Code style though, I do agree isn’t worth stressing about. I do think you may as well decide on a linter/style, just so it’s decided and you can give it minimal energy moving forward.