My favourite debates among programmers

I have come across lots of debates related to development in my software development career so far and, more recently, when developing www.bookmarks.dev. Below you can find a list of my favorites and my take on each of them.

I, as many others, might be somewhat biased, but I try to keep an open minded, because in the end what matters are the products and the quality we provide.

Space vs tabs

I was aware of this debate, but I guess this was brought to my attention by the scene from Sillicon Valley where Richard breaks up with his girlfriend over this topic:

I use tabs and I am used to auto format my code anyway (Ctrl + Alt + L in IntelliJ)

Monorepo or multiple repositories

I switched recently to a monorepo for bookmarks.dev's source code and I tend to now bring the things that belong together "closer"...

Dark vs Light Themes for your IDE

When I was younger I definitely preferred darker themes, but with the time passing I am more into practicality of things. Now use only Light Themes simply because it strains my eyes less and am not developing in a cage or with closed curtains anymore that might speak for a dark theme. (The energy saving with dark themes is also negligible)

I've recently discovered - f.lux and it is awesome. It makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

Links:

Functional programming vs OOP

I've used mostly "OOP" languages (Java, Javascript), which offer functional-programming capabilities I try to take advantage of. I don't have a strong opinion here and I think it comes to using the right strategy for the job. You can find a fairly neutral perspective in the following article - FP vs. OO

Links:

OR vs AND operator in default search

It was not until recently, that I found out Google sacrificed one of its most useful operators in its searches "+", for the sake of their Google+ social network (so this happened loooong time ago), that eventually turned out to be a flop:

You would put the "+" operator in front of words to force them appear in search results, instead of having to constantly select the option Must include, after words. Now you have to put the words between quotes, which is more cumbersome, by Google standards anyway...

I, for one, expect that the search results include all the words I put in the search box (as Google used to do in the beginning), so this is the default option when searching on www.bookmarks.dev, despite Mongo using the same approach as Google. When no results are found that contain "ALL" the words, the alternative "ANY" option is presented...

Best programming language in the world

I think this is the false question to ask. Every language has its own advantages and disadvantages. One might be more appropriate for a project and other for another:

I think eventually the good ones will prevail. I tend to watch the stackoverflow technology report and tiobe index to understand where the "market" is going and try to adapt myself correspondingly.

Singular vs Plural when naming things

I use singular for homogenous and plural for heterogeneous items(which is rarely the case)

Conclusion

Did I miss any important ones? I am curious what are your favorites - leave a comment below and let's debate it!

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