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Comment by TehShrike | Hacker News Reader

"consistency" isn't beneficial unless it makes you better at shipping something useful

I struggle to think of any time when consistency would not make you better at shipping something useful

A codebase with consistent styles and patterns is easier to work on than a chaotic codebase, it would definitely make you better at shipping

And so on

What if everything were written in C? Or Python? Or Java?

We'd have massive consistency across the software industry and yet that would be an absolutely terrible idea.

This was my line of thinking when making the comment. Obviously there has to be some balance, but in general I'm a fan of consistency, even if I'm not a big fan of the things we are being consistent on.

I think the problem with cargo culting isn't usually the stuff the cargo cult preaches

It's the constant churn of dropping the current thing for the new cargo cult whenever it comes along. Cargo culting destroys consistency by constantly seeking the next new hotness

I've seen codebases that were consistent in e.g. copy/pasting a meaningless comment into the top of every file.

This did not make the team better at shipping something useful.

Consistency is bullshit if it doesn't help you ship something that people care about.

Shipping is not the end game. Things need to be operated and maintained, sometimes for many years to come.

Consistency helps keep things more predictable and simpler to interpret and change.

I agree. "Shipping" means "shipping over time", i.e. maintaining for 10+ years

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