> In terms of mere code formatting, I don't buy that there's a meaningful difference between 100% consistency and say 95%.
I think you are contradicting yourself a bit with
> Programming should actually allow for creativity, and where you decide to add spaces and newlines can actually add subtle but important communication as to the significance of a particular part of one's code.
The point being that something small might have significance to one person but not the other.
And that consistency is probably important, but there is a difference between consistency of your stuff and consistency between your stuff and stuff of others.
So I think what it boils down to is that crafting hobbies are often more fulfilling not (only) because they have tangible outcomes, but because you can do them on your own and on your terms.
If you were to do woodworking where you craft one piece of a bigger thing (say a part of some larger furniture), you would also have to produce very homogenic and precise output. And it probably would not be very fun and fulfilling.
> The point being that something small might have significance to one person but not the other.
Yeah, that's totally fair. I think conversations can be had with such cases, and I think that trying to effectively eliminate the conversation is a bad thing, which relates closely to my overall objection. Ironically, it ends up in conversation anyway unless a developer is always a good little goober and never marches out of sync.
Maybe my mindset would be different if I saw great software around me, but I see mostly crappy and user-hostile software these days. I'm not sure whether strict formatting "standards" is of meaningful benefit for the users.
> If you were to do woodworking where you craft one piece of a bigger thing (say a part of some larger furniture), you would also have to produce very homogenic and precise output. And it probably would not be very fun and fulfilling.
Yeah, I guess you've identified where my thought in response to woodworking falls apart. haha If it were one's employment, it could indeed be as confining as being a programmer at BigCo.
I think you are contradicting yourself a bit with
> Programming should actually allow for creativity, and where you decide to add spaces and newlines can actually add subtle but important communication as to the significance of a particular part of one's code.
The point being that something small might have significance to one person but not the other.
And that consistency is probably important, but there is a difference between consistency of your stuff and consistency between your stuff and stuff of others.
So I think what it boils down to is that crafting hobbies are often more fulfilling not (only) because they have tangible outcomes, but because you can do them on your own and on your terms.
If you were to do woodworking where you craft one piece of a bigger thing (say a part of some larger furniture), you would also have to produce very homogenic and precise output. And it probably would not be very fun and fulfilling.