Thatās in a Guideline
Published on MayĀ 17, 2016 (updated AugĀ 24, 2023), filed under development (feed). (Share this on Mastodon orĀ Bluesky?)
About two weeks ago I ended a little lottery to give away signed copies of my last book, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines. Overall, the response was low (8 comments, 3 tweets, 2 notes elsewhere). But I promised to feature select feedback and, of course, the winners. Here we go.
Matthias Schelling: āIn CSS, not every property/value pair speaks for itself
[ā¦]. Always write comments for these ambiguous declarations[ā¦]!āI wish to comment without rating: I deem this an important idea but also a tricky one, for it involves making assumptions about what fellow developers know. For beginners we could need to comment everything, for some experts truly nothing.
Gabriel Song: āGuidelines improve consistency among code by multiple authors [which leads to] better readability and collaboration.ā
This hits close to an opening point in The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines: āThe major, direct benefit of coding guidelines is improved consistency. Why? Because with comprehensive coding guidelines all code gets formatted the same way.ā
Shay Cojocaru: āConsistency among team members and keeping concerns separated.ā
Separation of Concerns is a key to improving maintainability and I agree that this makes for a vital piece in coding guidelines.
Sophie CĆ©line: āMost important lesson for me was keeping code well structured and as clean, short and simple as possible.ā
This is a great lesson that serves all of usĀ š
Anton Maslo: āFor me the most important part of guidelines is to avoid future pain. It may be quick to bolt on thoughtless hacks here and there (getting the job done!)āuntil something trivial takes hours to find out āWhere does it fit in this bloated mess?āā
Although the interesting question for our work is, how exactly do we avoid future pain, it is the forward direction that I like to see in this thinking. We should develop for the present but still look ahead.
The frameworks book, then, shall go to:
Jim Lehmer: āCoding guidelines are important because they keep me from walking down the hall and strangling a junior dev!ā (with a smiley).
I wish this not to become common practice but like to acknowledge this comment for most of us will be able to relate, in a compassionate wayĀ š
Thanks everyone for participating! If youāre among the winners, please email me so that I can arrange for getting you your copy. Until the next āLittle Bookā!
About Me
Iām Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iām a web developer, manager, and author. Iāve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies youāve never heard of and companies you use every day, Iām an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for OāReilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)