I also prefer 2 spaces to 4, it saves a lot of space in nested blocks. I would say, however, that I don't really believe in "house style" when it comes to code formatting. It is entirely possible to format code as an unreadable mess, but my experience has always been that any "real" code is presented in a readable format. It may not follow my exact personal preference, but I don't think that means it should be changed. I agree that it's polite to follow the tab size already in the file, which I believe is the case throughout the codebase, even if there are some files that use 2 spaces and others that use 4.
Personally, I don't think there's a readability problem in the Aries source and therefore I don't think that we need to establish code formatting rules. Equally, it's not that important an issue and definitely not worth starting an argument over! Regards, Tim > Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:46:26 +0000 > Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] Code formatting > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > > I always worry about establishing code formatting guides because in my > experience it often devolves into unproductive arguments. > > Scanning through the geronimo guides the only things I do not > particularly like are: > > 1. I prefer 2 spaces for indent to 4. It gives you more line length > for actual code to fix. > 2. I prefer methods and classes to put the curly brace on a new line. > It helps me to identify where the method starts. > > In my view the primary rule for any code formatting rules is that they > be consistent within a file. So if a file uses 4 spaces for indent, > you use 4 (or you change it to 2 consistently in the file). I also > think you should only change the code formatting if you are a > significant contributor to the file. > > I defiantly agree that tabs should be banned in any source file :) > > Alasdair > > On 16 February 2010 10:25, Jeremy Hughes <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 16 February 2010 10:07, Guillaume Nodet <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I'd like aries to try using a single coding standards. > >> Specifically, i'd like us to agree on indentation rules (the code uses > >> 2 or 4 spaces in different places). > >> I'd like to propose the geronimo coding standards which is in use in a > >> lot of projects at apache. > >> See http://geronimo.apache.org/coding-standards.html > > > > I had a quick look. I agree to no tabs and prefer 2 spaces to 4. I > > also think this needs to apply to xml. > > > > Whatever the convention is, we should be able to codify it in an > > Eclipse code formatter profile (and equivalents for other IDE). If the > > formatting convention requires manual steps to apply - i.e. anything > > more than: select-all then ctrl-shift-f to format, then I don't think > > it will be applied consistently. > > > >> > >> Btw, I really don't think we should enforce those at all cost using > >> maven plugins or such, > > > > I didn't know there was one! This actually sounds like a perfectly > > reasonable thing to do - like removing compile warnings, and fixing or > > filtering issues findbugs finds. So on the face of it I'm actually +1 > > for this. > > > >> but agreeing on > >> those would allow to reformat the code once and not go back and forth > >> between different standards. > > +1 !! > > > > Cheers, > > Jeremy > > > > > > -- > Alasdair Nottingham > [email protected] _________________________________________________________________ Tell us your greatest, weirdest and funniest Hotmail stories http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/
