Cognitive dissonance J
John
John Souvestre - New Orleans LA
From: golang-nuts@googlegroups.com [mailto:golang-nuts@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Michael Jones
Sent: 2017 July 27, Thu 15:38
To: Rob Pike
Cc: Ecstatic Coder; golang-nuts
Subject: Re: [go-nuts] Re: No Allman-Style, No go!
Ecstatic, based on what you said here ("some people will never be forced to
change" and "because Google engineers have decided"), I believe there are a few
ideas you may profitably consider about the formatting topic--ideas that you
probably have not yet considered and which may ease your concerns.
FIRSTLY, there are probably people who would absolutely refuse to visit the
United Kingdom because "they will never be forced to drive on the wrong side of
the road." Or perhaps, they would visit, but would drive on "the right side
show those silly UK people see how we do it at home." Some, but not many,
because most people understand that being in a society of people who drive on
one side of the road is best embraced by sharing that same side. This has
nothing to do with anyone's opinion about which side is truly and naturally the
best and wisest side to drive on. It is instead about driving effectively as an
ensemble rather than alone as an isolated individual.
As surprising as it may be, this is a very similar to the situation with the
style gofmt implements (which side of the road) and the reason that whatever
style it is is considered important by other developers (the other drivers).
Now, this is all in the context of more than one developer (one car/one
driver). If you build a private road at your estate than you're surely welcome
to drive on either side, down the middle, or even to weave back and forth in a
sinusoidal pattern. Whatever makes you happy. Whatever you see as the "one true
way." The idea of fitting in for the purpose of mutual survival or efficiency
is not at play when you are alone.
Maybe you program alone. Maybe nobody else sees your code. Maybe you do not
wish to import and examine the code of others nor export code of your own. If
so, this entire thread is not really meant for you. However...
SECONDARIALY, one of the most important aspects of being a Google [software]
engineer is the reality of working in a multi-hundred million line source code,
with 10,000+ other programmers, and having every line of code reviewed by other
developers before checkin. (Important, but not unique--same at IBM, Oracle,
Microsoft, Apple, ...) In this kind of professional team development
environment, the efficiency of code reuse, of quickly understanding the code of
others, and of avoiding false source code deltas based in stylistic changes is
paramount. Google started in a garage, but did not stay there. This attention
to working as a team, grew with the company as it does in other large,
effective software teams.
To the extent that a "common style has been forced because Google engineers
decided," it is actually the case that "Google engineers were forced by scale
to accept a common format." Not that they are victims, just that like drivers
and modern society, they grew weary of needless traffic jams, accidents, and
injuries. I've travelled very long distances in India, for example, where there
are often no lane markers on roads and people drive on whatever part they like.
With such kind people it works well in the country, but in the cities where
congestion reaches a critical mass, it seems to work spectacularly poorly.
The rigidity that frustrates you is the price of society, of easy code review
and understanding; it is not, as some presume, a declaration of a "best" way to
indent. Rather it is an example of a "best way to collaborate at scale" which
is just the kind of situation where Go intends to solve existing problems.
My views, not Google's.
On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 5:34 AM, Rob Pike <r...@golang.org> wrote:
Very few, though. Very few.
As the proverb says:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAAkCSZUG1c&t=8m43s> Gofmt's style is no
one's favorite, yet gofmt is everyone's favorite.
-rob
On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 6:49 PM, Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.co...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Btw please don't take it personally. What I'm saying is that indeed some people
(including me as you see) WILL NEVER agree to be forced to change their coding
style because Google engineers have decided so, but that doesn't mean we should
stay away from go just because of our mental incapacity to agree on that.
On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 9:32 AM, <ecstatic.co...@gmail.com> wrote:
I don't know if you have read this post above :
"BTW, I've just released Genesis, an open source generic preprocessor which
automatically converts Allman style code into K&R and allows genericity by
parametric instantiation.
https://github.com/senselogic/GENESIS
Better late than never... ;)"
Obviously, I don't like AT ALL the K&R style, to which I prefer the Allman
style, for not only personal but also OBJECTIVE reasons.
And yet I've learned Go and enjoy a lot to use this language, despite this
implies using an external tool to add genericity and fix the code indentation.
Btw here are the result of a small internet poll on indentation styles :
- Allman : 7450 votes
- K&R style : 5514 votes
- Whitesmith : 455
- GNU : 422
- Horstman : 131
- Pico : 93
- Banner : 243
(http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2009/04/10/the-only-correct-indent-style)
Even if these 14000 votes are obviously not enough to reflect the whole
development community, at least you can see here that many developers prefer
the Allman style to the K&R style.
So sorry, but I completely disagree with your advice to stay away from Go if
you don't like its forced indentation style policy.
It's not only too radical, but also not needed, as there are already tools to
fix that issue.
On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 12:01:19 AM UTC+1, JuciÊ Andrade wrote:
I propose a new rule for our Code of Conduct: Before posting to the "No
Allman-Style, No go!" thread, you shall read and understand all previous posts
in the aforementioned thread.
Justo to be clear: Go indentation style is a time saver. It was carefuly
crafted to piss some people off. As you can see, it works wonders. If someone
can't handle a simple change in indentation style, then she has no business
trying to learn Go, so she quits, thus saving time.
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