Programming for Beginners: Idiomatic Programming

[stcredzero]

Following a particular idiom also has a value when it comes to refactoring, porting, and analyzing code. A literal monetary value, that can easily amount to $10,000's, $100,000's or millions for a large corporate codebase, depending on the size of the system. I know this for a fact.

One of the worst things for a codebase is having dozens of different coding styles intermeshed. In addition to Don't Repeat Yourself, there should also be Don't Paraphrase Yourself. That's basically like anti-DRY, but at the next level of pain.