CONTRIBUTING.md

I've tried to keep this kinda short, but also explaining the reason for all the decisions in a concise manner

Intro

Large projects have a lot of contributors. And contributors have different habits, sometime we have to fix some of those habits so that people can all write similar code.

NOTE: This guide is new, some things do not adhere to this yet, but please try to stick to this file when adding new things or doing code cleanup

If you don't want to read the entire sections, read the text in bold for the most important part

Indentation

Regular indentation

If supported by the language, use 2-space indents. Languages which do not support this are rare.

If 2-space indents are not supported by the language, use 4-space indents.

2-space indents are plenty for readability, while 4-space indents just waste horizontal space for people with monitors in a vertial position. As writing code with vertical monitors have become pretty common lately, let's show them some love.

Continuation indents

Do not use continuation indents, if you don't write your code on a single line, create a block instead.

Wrong:

if debug:
  something.run(variable1=True,
    variable2=False,
    variable3="Potato")

Correct:

if debug:
  something.run(
    variable1=True,
    variable2=False,
    variable3="Potato")

Also correct, but only recommended for shorter lines:

if debug:
  something.run(var1=True, var2=False)

This is for consistency, nothing else

Code

Brackets

Open brackets on the same line as the statement, there's no point in wasting a line for the { (And no, "Readability" is not an argument it's called personal preference)

Wrong:

if ($something == True)
{
  echo "Yes";
}

Correct:

if ($something == True){
  echo "Yes";
}

The spacing between the if/else, the (statement) and the opening bracket is up to you, we're not that picky. A single space does not create much of a difference in readability.

Line breaks

Do not break lines, unless you feel it's a viable option to use a proper block instead, if people want to read long lines, they should be capable of enabling soft-wrap in their editor. You should never break a line just because "It's getting too long"

Wrong:

do.something(var1=True, var2=False,
  var3="Hey", var="Potato", var4="Placeholder")

Correct:

do.something(var1=True, var2=False, var3="Hey", var="Potato", var4="Placeholder")

Also correct:

do.something(
  var1=True,
  var2=False, 
  var3="Hey", 
  var="Potato", 
  var4="Placeholder")