The War of Coding Standards!

Its a great shame how a group of individuals can collectively take a wrong
decisions, because of the influence of certain individuals.

Today at work, the coding standards review group decided to always places
braces ( '{' ) in next line in Java code. The reasons that lead to this is
as follows:

1) Its easier to follow.
2) Its more logical, Its easy for a programmer to compare an opening braces
to a closing one, and treat what ever is between them as a block of code.
3) Existing codebase is largely formatted this way.


Why I think its a wrong decision:

1) Neither of these coding styles are particularly different. Its about what
a person is used to, and how flexible he or she is to adapt to changes.
2) The idea of a brace ends another brace is err, not that great! The way to
look at it is to see a statement (if, for etc) starts (ignore the '{') and
then it closes with the '}'
3) Coding Standards are to ensure that the code is maintainable. And many of
us wouldn't be here couple of years down the line, and the new comes with
years of Java experience (or Only Java experience, No C or C++) would be
naturally more comfortable with the Java Coding Standards, which places
braces in the same line.
4) The industry standard. We are coding in Java, not C or C++. Sticking to
the industry standards are always beneficial at one stage or other, and the
industry follows the Java Coding Standard (with braces in the same line).

End of the day, the decision was made by a handful of Senior Developers, who
have spend years coding C or C++ than Java. I have coded C++ years myself,
but I moved on to Java, pure Java in 1998, and have long adopted the Java
Coding Standard. And every new employee here at the workplace is more
comfortable with Java Coding style, and still the decision is totally
eclipsed by Senior Engineers just because they were used to that!

A less-than perfect world!!