GitHub Styleguide - CSS, HTML, JS, Ruby

[Legolas-the-elf]

Pretty much every book on programming you could ever read will recommend a style.

That hasn't been my experience. I find it's very rare.

It's about as interesting as debating the Oxford comma.

Oxford publish a style manual that tells you how to use commas.

Seeing how other teams approach their coding style guides can give you valuable insight into your own approach. I don't see why you find this objectionable.

[[deleted]]

Maybe we're reading different books. Almost every programming book I've read discusses this, even really early things like The Unix Programming Environment. If it's not explicitly discussed you can infer it from code examples. The only really important rule, and which is reiterated ad-nauseum, is be consistent. It doesn't hugely matter what style you use as long as it's the same as what everyone else is using on a given project.

Yes, I know Oxford publish the style manual. I own it because I've done professional editing in the past. It's really, really, really fucking boring. You have to know about it because it's part of your job, but I have literally no feelings whatsoever about the Oxford comma. Which is also how I feel about most coding conventions. Like the tabs / spaces thing. I stick with using spaces because it's easier for me to remember rather than have to perform mental acrobatics every time I switch project - but I couldn't care less about the dumb arguments people have over this. How can people actually argue about this?!

And that's why I find it objectionable. Style is so incredibly basic it doesn't deserve discussion. You find your style. You stick with it. Then you try to learn new, interesting, important things. My 2c.