Sunday, September 07, 2008 9:28 AM
A couple of us had a discussion concerning navigating code.
When I develop, I navigate by references which is probably why some feel that I lack organization in the ordering of my methods within a given class. I could be accused of being OCD on many things like lining up skittles by color and quantity (I eat them accordingly). However, I do not care in what order my methods fall nor what region. I generally do not use regions either.
She on the other hand navigates by physical placement of methods and 'knows' where each piece of code is within a code set. This was a great experience because we actually took the time to try and understand each other better. It was amazing that something so simple as navigating code had a large impact on completing a development task.
This concept can easily be applied to standards for coding. I was in a group of 16+ developers of all different backgrounds and skill levels working on the same product with VSS. There was no standards nor rules, we just coded and watched to see what stuck. We argued for weeks over standards without having any real consensus. The result? We went overboard. As an aside, we undid most of the standards a year and a half later by regen'ing everything from Excel scripts.
So I learned to relax a little bit and not go all 'pit bull' on different issues because it just alienates me and makes everyone else tense.
rusty