--- title: The most ridiculous “coding standards” on the planet… description: A humorous critique of GNU coding standards, focusing on quirky rules like placing opening curly braces in column one (inherited from Emacs/Lisp's 'defun'... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-most-ridiculous-coding-standards-on-the-planet--y0ww2lksp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The most ridiculous “coding standards” on the planet… | daily.dev og:description: A humorous critique of GNU coding standards, focusing on quirky rules like placing opening curly braces in column one (inherited from Emacs/Lisp's 'defun'... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-most-ridiculous-coding-standards-on-the-planet--y0ww2lksp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Y0wW2lKsP.png og:image:alt: The most ridiculous “coding standards” on the planet… og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The most ridiculous “coding standards” on the planet… **[Kantan Coding](https://daily.dev/sources/kantancoding)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A humorous critique of GNU coding standards, focusing on quirky rules like placing opening curly braces in column one (inherited from Emacs/Lisp's 'defun' navigation), always adding a space before parentheses, and requiring two spaces after sentence-ending periods in comments. The video argues these standards exist primarily to accommodate Emacs' limitations rather than for genuine readability or developer ergonomics. It also includes a sponsored segment for Mem Zero, an open-source persistent AI memory layer for coding assistants. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Tabs, Spaces, Hand Tools, and Seat Belts](https://daily.dev/posts/tabs-spaces-hand-tools-and-seat-belts-hlrb2escu) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Clean Code Is Not the Same as Clear Code: Comments Were Never the Problem](https://daily.dev/posts/clean-code-is-not-the-same-as-clear-code-comments-were-never-the-problem-6lmauekpv) · DEV · 75 upvotes · 14 comments - [The Double Standard Is Killing AI Adoption in Your Team](https://daily.dev/posts/the-double-standard-is-killing-ai-adoption-in-your-team-ssseh3e42) · The Miners · 24 upvotes · 11 comments --- Tags: [#c](https://daily.dev/tags/c), [#lisp](https://daily.dev/tags/lisp) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-most-ridiculous-coding-standards-on-the-planet--y0ww2lksp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The most ridiculous “coding standards” on the planet…","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-most-ridiculous-coding-standards-on-the-planet--y0ww2lksp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-most-ridiculous-coding-standards-on-the-planet--y0ww2lksp"},"datePublished":"2026-07-15T14:02:05.350Z","dateModified":"2026-07-15T14:02:21.228Z","description":"A humorous critique of GNU coding standards, focusing on quirky rules like placing opening curly braces in column one (inherited from Emacs/Lisp's 'defun'...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_kn_HUKbWyI/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_kn_HUKbWyI/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Kantan Coding","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Kantan Coding","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--FBdOHLfr--/f_auto/v1729363355/logos/kantancoding","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/kantancoding"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-most-ridiculous-coding-standards-on-the-planet--y0ww2lksp","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"c,lisp","timeRequired":"PT4M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"The most ridiculous “coding standards” on the planet…","description":"A humorous critique of GNU coding standards, focusing on quirky rules like placing opening curly braces in column one (inherited from Emacs/Lisp's 'defun'...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_kn_HUKbWyI/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-07-15T14:02:05.350Z","duration":"PT4M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/Y0wW2lKsP","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/_kn_HUKbWyI"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kantan Coding","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/kantancoding"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The most ridiculous “coding standards” on the planet…"}]} ```