No Accounting for Taste: Supporting Developers' Individual Choices of Coding Styles

Abstract

When creating their programs, developers usually have a preferred or standardized style of their own to write code, known as coding style. Such code is usually stored in a version control repository, through which collaborative work usually takes place. However, in such a setting, isolated attempts of standardization can lead to several coding styles coexisting in the same project, causing the opposite effect to that intended. Besides increasing the effort required to understand code, coding style conflicts may also clutter repository history as developers change existing styles to their usual preferences. To overcome this problem, we propose an approach to support the definition of a repository coding style while allowing developers to use their preferred coding style. To illustrate our approach, we built the RECoSt tool and applied it using real excerpts of a popular open source project. Our proposed approach intends to help developers keep their projects' coding style standardized without having to abandon the style they are familiar with.