On Aug 31, 2010, at 2:35 PM, fin wrote: >> The concept of the One-Style-To-Rule-Them-All is just childish. > > Have you read "Style is Substance"? > http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=74230
No, I hadn't, thanks for the link. I tried to read the whole thing but stopped after reading what he considered to be "logic". Premise #2 and #4 were introduced as facts yet consisted of 100% subjective opinion, that is, I think in fact quite questionable. I can rip them apart if you'd like: Premise 2: There is not now, nor will there ever be, a programming style whose benefit is significantly greater than any of the common styles. All you have to do is take one look at the blood that has been spilled over this topic to see how untrue this statement is. People get very passionate about their preferred style, and if you ask them to write in another style they will complain and cringe and claim that some such or other capability of theirs is being hampered. He is making an objective claim about something that is totally, completely, subjective. Premise 4: For any non-trivial project, a common coding style is a good thing. Relevant quote: "having several folks hacking on the same code with conflicting coding styles introduces more pain than any single style imposes on any single person." Here he introduces the concept of "conflicting coding styles" without explaining what the hell that is. I have seen many projects that have different code style interspersed throughout, yet how they were conflicting is beyond me. This is yet another area where he confuses subjectivity with objectivity. Whether or not a code style is in so-called "conflict" with another is a completely subjective phenomenon that depends on the observer. In fact I regularly use different code styles within my own code, and they are in no way in conflict, in fact, to me they very much appear to work together in harmony. Some scenarios lend themselves to one style, while others lend themselves to a different one. Further, he doesn't really treat the word "project" with the sophistication it deserves. A code "project" is a rather complex thing. A "single" project may in fact be composed of multiple, disparate projects, written by different authors. How he can claim that "Every project I know of has a style" is beyond me and leads me to question how observant or aware he is of the code he has used, for practically every significant project that I've used, participated in, or created has relied on the integration of various other bits of code and libraries written by different authors with different styles. My ability to not complain and adapt to understanding their style has not hurt but helped me as a programmer. He is right about one thing though, and that is that so long as style is not a matter of language syntax, there will be people who bring up this discussion again and again because they are for some reason or other incapable of handling a different style of code, just like some time ago white people in America were incapable of allowing blacks to drink from the same drinking fountains as they. Therefore there are actually two solutions to this problem. One of them is apparently "easy", and the other is hard. Either you: 1) Mandate code style to be a part of the language's syntax. or you: 2) Grow up and learn to accept the reality that some people think differently from you. It seems to me that the very spirit of LISP leans towards the second solution. LISP is, after all, a very dynamic, open, and extensible language. It does not mandate that you use very many special forms or constructs or keywords. It even allows the creation of new languages within itself. Such as spirit of freedom and openness is what I love about LISP, and why I think Mr. Arnold is mistaken. - Greg > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your > first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
