I'm annoyed by style all of a sudden ....

dalecosp

So, today I'm reading through some classes in a popular SW package (you're soaking in it...) and their style guide is like this:

        public static function get_instance()
        {
                if (is_null(self::$instance))
                {
                        self::$instance = new Core();

                    //initialize the search implementation
                    global $myName;
                    if (!empty($myName->options['implementation']))
                    {
                            call_user_func(array($myName->options['implementation'], 'go'));
                    }
            //      self::$instance->register_controller('foo', 'This', new myName_Controller_This());
            }
            return self::$instance;
    }

And for some reason, especially at the font-size in the terminal I was on at the time, it just plain annoyed the heck out of me.

What's wrong? Am I going crazy? Is my marriage falling apart? Perhaps I need to start drinking?

Am I one of those annoying guys you wouldn't want on your team? :eek:

Have you ever been just truly annoyed by someone else's coding style (assuming, of course, they have a consistent one ... posts on the 'Newbies' board here, for example, don't count ....)

NogDog

What do you mean by "style" in this context/instance: things about the visual layout of the code, or the choices made in what code to write in which sequence?

(Biggest thing that jumps out at me is the use of "global" within a class definition: bye-bye, loose coupling.)

Weedpacket

NogDog wrote:
(Biggest thing that jumps out at me is the use of "global" within a class definition: bye-bye, loose coupling.)

I mean, if they wanted an environmental context it's not as if they haven't heard of singletons...

dalecosp wrote:
especially at the font-size in the terminal I was on at the time,

Ah, the 8-space indents? Obviously they're using spaces for it, otherwise the indentation would have been whatever you set your tab size to (gee ... tabs ... what a novel idea ...)

I'm actually more annoyed by [font=monospace]if ([/font] as though there was some possibility I might confuse [font=monospace]if([/font] for a function call.

And dare I ask what the [font=monospace]$myName[/font] stuff actually has to do with getting the Core instance?

NogDog

Weedpacket;11040315 wrote:
I mean, if they wanted an environmental context it's not as if they haven't heard of singletons...

Heh...good point; though [FONT=Courier New]/some|many/[/FONT] would argue that singletons are [FONT=Courier New]/(almost )?as bad/[/FONT] as global variables.

dalecosp

Nogdog wrote:
What do you mean by "style" in this context/instance: things about the visual layout of the code, or the choices made in what code to write in which sequence?

Yes, the layout; in particular, ye olde braces question and the large tabs noted by Weedpacket. Hence my question, "am I one of those annoying guys you wouldn't wanna work with?" ... ;-)

Weedpacket wrote:
And dare I ask what the $myName stuff actually has to do with getting the Core instance?

$myName was obfuscation on my part, as the name of the variables are a clue-in for the package (of course, the 'Madge Palmolive' joke is too, if you're old enough to remember that one...). I don't really grok the entire architecture of this package, but I think the "$myName" stuff allows for large-scale modularity ... or is perhaps a symptom of it, since this package now includes stuff it was never originally intended to do....

NogDog

Outside of the 8-space tab, nothing particularly abnormal about it. Many prefer the braces always being on the next line so that they line up vertically with their terminating counterparts. In fact, I tend to do that for class/function definitions, but then put the starting brace at the end of the same line for flow-control blocks. That way I'm always bound to irritate somebody. 🙂

Weedpacket

dalecosp wrote:
(of course, the 'Madge Palmolive' joke is too, if you're old enough to remember that one...)

You're SOAKING in it!

So before obfuscation [font=monospace]self::$instance[/font] was modified by [font=monospace]$myName[/font] before it got returned (i.e. it was part of the process of constructing the Core)?

NogDog wrote:
any prefer the braces always being on the next line so that they line up vertically with their terminating counterparts.

Having braces start a new line makes for a nice reindentation algorithm that doesn't need to keep track of nesting. Well, it works having them at the end instead, I guess....

Bonesnap

NogDog;11040345 wrote:
That way I'm always bound to irritate somebody. 🙂

Like me! :mad:

I always put braces on the next line. I find it's much easier to organize code and thus much easier to read. It also lends itself to a literal meaning of "code block" because now the code you have in, say, your if block, actually looks contained within a block. And since I always do it no matter what, my code is consistent.

I do have annoyances when it comes to reading other peoples' code, some of them are coworkers but I try to take a step back and realize they probably think the same way about my code. I just feel like my code is written in such a way as to increase readability and maintainability, whereas others' code is just written to get the job done. But let's face it: we all think our code is the best, and we all like "our way" of doing things. I probably only like putting braces on the next line because that's how I was taught when I first learned programming way back when.

One particular thing that makes me want to gouge out my eyes and eat them, is when each new line has opening and closing <?php ?> tags. This is about as necessary as the Black Plague.

<?php if(somecondition) { ?>
<?php $x = 42; ?>
<?php $y = 69; ?>
<?php } ?>

<?php //end my life ?>

I find this is more of a problem when you have to inevitably mix PHP with HTML, but I have seen it elsewhere too.

My other big pet peeve is no use of white space. You know, when a developer never has an empty line, and you're faced with a wall of code, and your eyes are bleeding because you're trying to decipher it and all you can think is, "You have a damned Enter key for a reason!". No one wants to read a wall of text even in a literary context; it's no different in coding. Use white space, people. Organize your code. Group it. You just may save the next developer who has to work on it from going on a shooting rampage (or yourself, 8 months later and having to look at it again). Alternatively, putting a space (or too many lines, or inconsistently putting lines) between every line can also be extremely annoying. I've seen FileZilla screw up files by doing this. Not sure why it does it, but after pulling down a file from a server and then seeing basically double-spaced lines making a 650 line file into a 1300 line file, I want to close the file and walk away.

I like this thread. 🙂

NogDog

Within a function/method, I only like empty lines when I feel there is a need to emphasize that something special/different is starting. Otherwise, I tend to eschew empty lines -- not for readability per se, but so that as much code as possible fits in the window without me having to reduce the font size to something unreadable for my old eyes. 🙂 Anyway, if you keep your functions/methods specialized and to the point, as opposed to rambling blocks of procedural code, it's less of an issue. (Do as I say, not as I do, by the way.)

I hate this sort of thing, as a waste of vertical space in my editor:

function foo($bar)
{

$this->bar = $bar;

$this->foo = $bar * $this->fubarFactor;


// a comment about the next line

echo "And here is the next line, eventually.";

return $this;

}

I find this just as readable:

function foo($bar)
{
    $this->bar = $bar;
    $this->foo = $bar * $this->fubarFactor;

// a comment about the next line
echo "And here is the next line, eventually.";
return $this;
}

Derokorian

Bonesnap;11040379 wrote:
I do have annoyances when it comes to reading other peoples' code, some of them are coworkers but I try to take a step back and realize they probably think the same way about my code. I just feel like my code is written in such a way as to increase readability and maintainability, whereas others' code is just written to get the job done. But let's face it: we all think our code is the best, and we all like "our way" of doing things. I probably only like putting braces on the next line because that's how I was taught when I first learned programming way back when.

Bonesnap;11040379 wrote:
I find this is more of a problem when you have to inevitably mix PHP with HTML, but I have seen it elsewhere too.

I don't find that you ever HAVE to mix them. I prefer using templates. .php doesn't ever contain html, and .html doesn't ever contain php, its a glorious way of organizing.

Bonesnap;11040379 wrote:
My other big pet peeve is no use of white space. You know, when a developer never has an empty line, and you're faced with a wall of code, and your eyes are bleeding because you're trying to decipher it and all you can think is, "You have a damned Enter key for a reason!". No one wants to read a wall of text even in a literary context; it's no different in coding. Use white space, people. Organize your code. Group it. You just may save the next developer who has to work on it from going on a shooting rampage (or yourself, 8 months later and having to look at it again).

+∞ I hate it soooooooo much when people can't just put an extra line break here and there to group sections of code together. Often in my code the code blocks you spoke of earlier are separated not just by braces on their own line but also by a blank line.

Bonesnap;11040379 wrote:
Alternatively, putting a space (or too many lines, or inconsistently putting lines) between every line can also be extremely annoying. I've seen FileZilla screw up files by doing this. Not sure why it does it, but after pulling down a file from a server and then seeing basically double-spaced lines making a 650 line file into a 1300 line file, I want to close the file and walk away.

This is probably because someone didn't normalize their line endings to be all unix or all windows, so you're editor is showing multiple line breaks when it sees "\r\n" (at least this is what has happened to me).

Bonesnap

NogDog;11040383 wrote:
Within a function/method, I only like empty lines when I feel there is a need to emphasize that something special/different is starting.

Exactly. Your second example is how I like to write code as well.

Additionally, within reason, I like to align assignment operators when I'm assigning a bunch of successive variables.

$first_name = 'something';
$last_name  = 'something';
$address    = 'something';
$foo        = 'something';

I've heard some people don't like this, because if a variable name changes or something it could throw the whole thing off. It's certainly a possibility, but really with today's editors you can tab lines of code and organize it pretty quickly, so I see that as a moot point especially when you consider how nice and easy it is to read.

Derokorian;11040387 wrote:
I don't find that you ever HAVE to mix them. I prefer using templates. .php doesn't ever contain html, and .html doesn't ever contain php, its a glorious way of organizing.

Template or not, at some point you're going to have to "connect" the two, no? So instead of having some PHP code in your HTML, you're trading it for something else. I think having PHP in HTML isn't really that bad so long as it's kept to a minimum and organized properly (like putting as much stuff as you can at the top of your page). But really something simple like the following shouldn't be much of an issue.

<header>
    <?php require_once('header.php'); ?>
</header>

//other stuff

<footer>
    <?php require_once('footer.php'); ?>
</footer>

Derokorian;11040387 wrote:
This is probably because someone didn't normalize their line endings to be all unix or all windows, so you're editor is showing multiple line breaks when it sees "\r\n" (at least this is what has happened to me).

It seems to happen randomly, albeit very rarely. Next time it happens though I'll check the line endings in Komodo.

Derokorian

@ my templates aren't even parsed by php any more, just served directly to the client to be parsed by angular. PHP just serves as service end points any more. So technically no, I don't ever connect them.

NogDog

So you're just delaying the combination of code and mark-up until the client side, instead of the server side. Sounds like a plan, as long as I'm not responsible for the JavaScript. 🙂

jeepin81

I'm a fan of MVC and try to keep as much "business" logic in my models but I'll have some for loops and variables showing up in my views.

I haven't done much w/ angularJS but I can tell you I'm not a fan of Smarty. Our intranet uses CMSMS which is based on Smarty. For some reason it just seems like extra code w/ a little bit of an extra learning curve - when I could have accomplished the same thing w/ my own MVC and the occasional PHP in my views.

I would be interested to hear the values of angularJS when keeping PHP/HTML separate.

Weedpacket

And the echo lounge maintains its reputation.

I went to look at AngularJS and on the front page found ... an angle:

[ATTACH]5113[/ATTACH]

It didn't do anything and it was apparently associated with a link further down.

Still, MVVM for example is an advance on MVC because it assumes that the View is going to be left to its own devices (i.e. running on a client remote from the server) and needs its own model of what is going on if it's going to make sense of all the things it's being asked to do beyond CRUD-based REPLs. In effect, it's two MVCs running on the two ends of the client/server relationship.

angle.png

dalecosp

jeepin81;11040443 wrote:
I haven't done much w/ angularJS but I can tell you I'm not a fan of Smarty.

Hear here!!!!! Dumb Smarty ;-)

Derokorian

@Weed looks like your using Firefox! ha! Looks great in Chrome and (believe it or not) even IE. I'm beginning to dislike firefox these days and don't even bother testing in it anymore, apparently neither do the devs at Google.

MVVM sounds like all my new development now a days.

@ to me the biggest advantage is 2 way binding, but there are many other cool things about it. I find my programming to be entirely separate from my designs.

Bonesnap

jeepin81;11040443 wrote:
...but I can tell you I'm not a fan of Smarty.

I haven't used Smarty, but two coworkers have and they both hated it.

Derokorian;11040459 wrote:
@Weed looks like your using Firefox! ha! Looks great in Chrome and (believe it or not) even IE. I'm beginning to dislike firefox these days and don't even bother testing in it anymore, apparently neither do the devs at Google.

Looks fine for me in Firefox. Seems like our browser "allegiances" are opposite, in that I hate Chrome, but that's mostly because it can't render fonts properly on Windows (this is more of an issue with Blink since Opera Next has the same problem). Also I'm finding, as well as a coworker, that Chrome is becoming "that browser" that creates an edge-case for us in terms of layout. It will just randomly add a pixel or two to a height or width of something, knocking it to the next line, etc., and we're forced to compensate. It of course looks great on all other browsers, even Internet Explorer. The joys of being a web dev...

AngularJS seems interesting but from my very limited perusing of the site it appears simple stuff such as:

<h1>Hello {{yourName}}!</h1>

Is the same as:

<h1>Hello <?php echo $yourName; ?>!</h1>

I'm sure there's more to it, but it does look like you're just trading one syntax for another.

Shrike

Regarding coding style are you guys not fans of PSR standards stuff? @ - the difference is the JS version is executing client side.

dalecosp

I'm so home-grown I've never even read the PSR standards; not to mention, no one else here writes code. I suppose if we ever do hire another programmer I'll be senior and have to decide what we do ... God help the poor sonofagun ;-)