Things I strongly dislike when developing software.


Developers that doesn't use the project build tool

Developers that doesn't use the project build tool because the software "compiles in their IDE". Useful articles: onjava.com article

People that do not quote their emails and news postings

Very few people these days knows the good practice of quoting. Proper email quoting makes all email correspondence easier and makes it possible to keep the overview of email discussions with multiple participants. Email quoting is described in RFC1855 (Netiquette Guidelines) and a good overview on the topic can be read her.

The only email client that doesn't support quoting per default is also the wold's most used one, namely Microsoft Outlook. The , Outlook-Quotefix program looks promising for Outlook users seeking to join the crowd of net-etiquette concious people.

Lines longer than 80 characters

I ususally stick to 72, but 80 is an absolute maximum! Especially Window$ users like to have their editor window maximised and "must" therefore use the full width.

Inconsequent coding style

Some people just don't have a clue what they're doing, they just write

some code. You can't in one stanza write:

 if(true){

then in the next:

if (true) {

and in the third:

if( true ) {

It's ok to disagree on coding style; but please be consequent!

Inconsequent name giving

Again, some developers just don't care, sometimes aLinkedList instance is calledlinkedList and the MySuperDuperClass instance is called mc. Either write long names (which I prefer) or write short names or write minimalistic names. But be consistent!

Tabs instead of spaces

Makes the code look different where you view it. A lot of developers doesn't know there is a difference. All they know, is that it works "on their computer".

HTML and XHTML code that doesn't validate

Almost noone knows how to write proper X/HTML, which is ironic as it's so. Thanks to very forgiving browsers, most developers/designers don't care (and know) how to make the pages validate. I've written a page on this topic as it has frustrated me many times.


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