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phoghedtoday at 12:06 PM3 repliesview on HN

Waiting patiently for the other person to produce a post hoc rationalization about why everybody’s code looking different is in fact a good thing


Replies

maratctoday at 12:46 PM

My argument is more to the tune of "everybody’s code looking slightly different is not a problem in practice as long as I can read and understand it."

However since you've asked so nicely here you go: everybody’s code looking different is because all humans are different. It's what makes us human. I am very serious about my craftsmanship, and I bring my "humanity" to it: sometimes I include a cultural reference (as in the example above), or an internal joke in the name of a (very long) variable, or vent my frustration in a comment.

My first ten years of writing Python were uneventful; nobody commented about my style and I never commented about others'. With the advent of grammar nazi bots, everyone is supposed to now please them by writing completely bland code, which in my opinion degrades me from a craftsman to a code-monkey. This is dehumanising, in a certain sense.

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insanitybittoday at 12:11 PM

Can you not read code if it uses single vs double quotes?

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yreadtoday at 12:45 PM

That's exactly what a good cogwheel in the machine would say