Code Formatting and New Lines

Last week I had a healthy debate with some co-workers about code formatting, which to a lot of developers can be a pretty religious subject. While you could argue that coding style should be a personal preference, I believe it's more important to use consistent coding practices when working in a team environment.

One formatting style we discussed was the use of new lines in code blocks. Here are three common formatting styles for the same code:

Style 1

if (true) {
    console.log('yay!');
} else {
    console.log('boo!');
}

Style 2

if (true) {
    console.log('yay!');
}
else {
    console.log('boo!');
}

Style 3

if (true)
{
    console.log('yay!');
}
else
{
    console.log('boo!');
}

When I first starting coding, I preferred Style 3, since it provides more visual separation. Currently I prefer Style 2, although it's not even a formatting option at http://jsbeautifier.org/, which makes me question my choice a little. Douglas Crockford seems to prefer Style 1, so maybe I should consider making the switch.

Which do you prefer?

Don't Mix Tags and Script in the Same Component

Every now and then, I'll see some code in an open source ColdFusion project that mixes tag syntax and script syntax in the same component. Personally, I find it really annoying when people jump in and out of cfscript blocks. If the component isn't written entirely in script, then don't use any script - stick with tags.

Some people think that since writing in script is cleaner, it's cleaner to write part of the function in script than write it using tags. However, if you're declaring your component and functions in tags, switching to script inside the function actually decreases your code readability in my opinion. Take the following hypothetical example, which is sadly all-too-common in certain open source projects:

<cffunction name="setFoo" access="public" output="false" returntype="void">
 <cfargument name="foo" required="true" type="string" />

 <cfscript>
  variables.foo = arguments.foo;
 </cfscript>


</cffunction>

<cffunction name="getFoo" access="public" output="false" returntype="string">

 <cfscript>
  return variables.foo;
 </cfscript>

</cffunction>

I find this style of coding ridiculous.