[racket-dev] RFC: Coding Guidelines

On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:
> I (finally) read this and the thread that went on at the time, and I
> don't see any point in all of this, besides a vage plea to encourage
> tests, and a slightly more concrete (but impractical) call for stress
> tests.

I think laying down general philosophy is useful. It sets a tone.
However, I agree with most of your other points though I'm less
concerned about the ownership of code side, probably 'cause I don't
have to deal with everyday.

> * "\"Primum non nocere\"" -- after looking this up (bad for such a
>  document), I strongly disagree with it.  IIUC, it reads as "if it
>  works, don't mess with it"

Idiomatically that would be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I too
strongly disagree with this.

> * Yet another huge ommision from such a document is style.  This comes
>  in several flavors:

Yes. This is one of the most important aspect IMO. Consistent style
makes it easy for anyone to navigate the code base. We have evolved a
house style at Untyped and it is useful.

N.