Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.
I tell people that I chose to work with Django and Python because of the great documentation. That’s not the whole truth.
I believe now that I chose Django because it is a well-documented convention for building web applications. Every Django app I’ve built looks like a stereotypical Django app. I didn’t have to make any difficult decisions about coding style, how code relates to other code, or where code resides in files.
I recently joined a team of iOS developers tasked with building a brand new app and was nearly blindsided by having to choose a coding style for the first time.
At first I went along with other team members’ decisions, deferring to their expertise. However, when team members disagreed I began to examine my own tastes and preferences.
I’ve probably thought more about code style in the past month than I have in my entire career.
For me it’s a nice hobby to think about code as a concept. I’m usually very focused on building applications and writing code is just a means to an end.
I’m not sure that I can force myself to care too deeply about code.