After twenty something years of coding I have finally come up against a coding standard. I did some work for the US office and yes it works thanks but we should have sent you our coding standard to work to. Please change your code to match it!

How do I feel about being told how to lay out my code? How many spaces to put in an if statement, Where to put my curlies (ooo-err ). It’s a strange experience. I’ve waffled before about the creativity of programming - and that does extend to how you lay out what you write. If it looks stupid / ugly / messy when you’ve finished what does that do to your satisfaction level? Where’s the pride in producing something beautiful / functional / “good” if you are made to make it look bad? If there is no pride / satisfaction why bother to do a good job. It’s the craftsman vs. the production line argument.

So are you required to layout code to a standard? Do you require a standard of others? Is it worth it?