Code Standards & Front-end Development Best Practices (opens in new tab)

(na.isobar.com)

98 pointsoewolf15y ago22 comments

22 comments

19 comments · 9 top-level

melvinram15y ago· 6 in thread

The difficulty with such "standards" and "best practices" is that what is standard can often be subjective. For example, under Indentation, they have:

  For all code languages, we require indentation to be 
  done via soft tabs (using the space character). Hitting 
  Tab in your text editor shall be equivalent to four spaces.

Umm, who died and made you king? <tongue and cheek> I don't like using 4 spaces. I find it a waste of space, literally. In ruby community, 2 spaces is generally accepted.

With that said, it's probably not a bad idea to have discussions around such standards with the understanding that there may be more than one good way to skin a cat.

shoeless15y ago

But they have a standard, and this is good for consistency across their development. What may be better is "follow the standard that you are working on", meaning, don't change coding style because you prefer your own, adopt what is already there, or the norms for a project (e.g. 2 space indents for all that Ruby code we have).

pstinnett15y ago

Agreed. Maintaining consistency is key.

2 more replies

ldh15y ago

Coding standards are helpful and not uncommon when collaborating within a team.

As much as you don't like using 4 spaces, it's much worse to have a codebase littered with some sections using 4 spaces, some sections using tabs, some sections using 2 spaces, some sections using 8 spaces, and some sections using a random assortment of nothing in particular.

Just as you accept the apparent standard of 2 spaces when working within the Ruby community, for consistency's sake I'd hope you would accept the standard of whatever other team you're working with.

Seth_Kriticos15y ago

I agree. I personally like 8 spaces, but I code in a way so others can choose their own preferences. Meaning, I use the tab character and avoid ASCII art in my source / comments. This way people can set up their tab width in their editor as they like and don't have to put up with my style de jure.

That's part of collaboration basics:

* Try to find an acceptable middle ground for the minor things and focus on coding and not politics.

* Don't be a douche.

~2¢

technomancy15y ago

Count your blessings that you work in a language that doesn't have ambiguity around indentation rules. These poor fellas obviously don't.

rob_react15y ago

Hey,

Isobar front end engineer here...

What you're looking at is a document that serves as OUR internal standard. We just made it public because we think people might find it useful. We understand what we do internally may not work for everyone, but that's part of the fun of sharing documents like this. We learn too.

Stormbringer15y ago· 2 in thread

I gave up on IE a long time ago. If they don't support the standards, I don't support them.

Of course my pages still render on IE, but I don't do any quirks mode stuff, that just causes too much pain.

Oh, well, that's not strictly true, since I have to have two different things in the CSS for rounded corners (webkit vs mozilla), but apart from that I try to keep quirks to a minimum, and IE can go die in a fire for all I care.

bauderjoshua15y ago

Do you not worry about viewers that still use IE?

oewolfOP15y ago

He just implied he doesn't. Not that his pages doesn't render, he just don't care to polish them for IE.

1 more reply

nathanlrivera15y ago· 2 in thread

The W3C HTML validator gives up after the second line of the document:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fna.isobar.com...

Stormbringer15y ago

Here's the source:

  <!DOCTYPE html> 
  <html lang="en"> 
  <head> 
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Code Standards | Isobar</title> 
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="assets/master.css" /> 
  </head> 
  <body> 



  <!--  
                _^_
               / _)         
        .-^^^-/ /          we like dinosaurs as much as you  do.
    __/       /              
    <__.|_|-|_|             
    
    -->

I see a couple of problems. First up, they're not indenting. The validator is spitting the dummy because of two things, the first is the spurious whitespace before the doctype tag, the second is the title (which it thinks is missing), but the real problem is with the meta tag which isn't properly closed.

But hey, free dinosaur. With hat.

allbutlost15y ago

Using html5 (or 4) the meta tag doesn't need to be closed. Personally I prefer to do close or self-close tags anyway as I entered the game with xhtml, whose syntax I still prefer.

dmpatierno15y ago

A very detailed and well-written document. My favorite line:

   Use CSS sprites generously. They make hover states easy, 
   improve page load time, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Funny and true.

mraybman15y ago

I think whether you agree with the specific technical points or not, this is a great article. I don't know if "best practices" exist, but consistent practices do, and they make it a lot easier understand other people's code. (and impose a minimum quality standard on people not familiar with the tech yet).

For example, Adobe never really bothered with specifying best practices for Flex, so now every Flex developer's code looks different, and there is a lot of unnecessary trial and error. (Although I like Flex as a framework)

brandon15y ago

Lots of the content (and most of the styling) was adapted from here: http://developer.fellowshipone.com/patterns/code.php

I'm fond of the original because it also includes some great UI design patterns.

famousactress15y ago

Let's take a vote. All in favor of never using the term 'Best Practices' ever, ever, again?

(no offense to the article's author.. actually looks really lucid and well written. I just tire of the idea that Best Practices™ exist. They don't.)

1 more reply

bauderjoshua15y ago

Wow this was very informative and I hope that people will actually take note and start to follow these standard more. The question I have is when should we stop building for certain versions of browsers for example ie7

dfischer15y ago

Great resource. It shall aid me in writing a book about this!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

22 comments

19 comments · 9 top-level

melvinram15y ago· 6 in thread

The difficulty with such "standards" and "best practices" is that what is standard can often be subjective. For example, under Indentation, they have:

  For all code languages, we require indentation to be 
  done via soft tabs (using the space character). Hitting 
  Tab in your text editor shall be equivalent to four spaces.

Umm, who died and made you king? <tongue and cheek> I don't like using 4 spaces. I find it a waste of space, literally. In ruby community, 2 spaces is generally accepted.

With that said, it's probably not a bad idea to have discussions around such standards with the understanding that there may be more than one good way to skin a cat.

shoeless15y ago

pstinnett15y ago

Agreed. Maintaining consistency is key.

2 more replies

ldh15y ago

Coding standards are helpful and not uncommon when collaborating within a team.

Just as you accept the apparent standard of 2 spaces when working within the Ruby community, for consistency's sake I'd hope you would accept the standard of whatever other team you're working with.

Seth_Kriticos15y ago

That's part of collaboration basics:

* Try to find an acceptable middle ground for the minor things and focus on coding and not politics.

* Don't be a douche.

~2¢

technomancy15y ago

Count your blessings that you work in a language that doesn't have ambiguity around indentation rules. These poor fellas obviously don't.

rob_react15y ago

Hey,

Isobar front end engineer here...

Stormbringer15y ago· 2 in thread

I gave up on IE a long time ago. If they don't support the standards, I don't support them.

Of course my pages still render on IE, but I don't do any quirks mode stuff, that just causes too much pain.

bauderjoshua15y ago

Do you not worry about viewers that still use IE?

oewolfOP15y ago

He just implied he doesn't. Not that his pages doesn't render, he just don't care to polish them for IE.

1 more reply

nathanlrivera15y ago· 2 in thread

The W3C HTML validator gives up after the second line of the document:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fna.isobar.com...

Stormbringer15y ago

Here's the source:

  <!DOCTYPE html> 
  <html lang="en"> 
  <head> 
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Code Standards | Isobar</title> 
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="assets/master.css" /> 
  </head> 
  <body> 



  <!--  
                _^_
               / _)         
        .-^^^-/ /          we like dinosaurs as much as you  do.
    __/       /              
    <__.|_|-|_|             
    
    -->

But hey, free dinosaur. With hat.

allbutlost15y ago

Using html5 (or 4) the meta tag doesn't need to be closed. Personally I prefer to do close or self-close tags anyway as I entered the game with xhtml, whose syntax I still prefer.

dmpatierno15y ago

A very detailed and well-written document. My favorite line:

   Use CSS sprites generously. They make hover states easy, 
   improve page load time, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Funny and true.

mraybman15y ago

brandon15y ago

Lots of the content (and most of the styling) was adapted from here: http://developer.fellowshipone.com/patterns/code.php

I'm fond of the original because it also includes some great UI design patterns.

famousactress15y ago

Let's take a vote. All in favor of never using the term 'Best Practices' ever, ever, again?

(no offense to the article's author.. actually looks really lucid and well written. I just tire of the idea that Best Practices™ exist. They don't.)

1 more reply

bauderjoshua15y ago

dfischer15y ago

Great resource. It shall aid me in writing a book about this!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse