From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Nov 24 1:34: 6 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 73C7D37B401 for ; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 01:34:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from post-21.mail.nl.demon.net (post-21.mail.nl.demon.net [194.159.73.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A1A4643E4A for ; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 01:34:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cls@raggedclown.net) Received: from [212.238.197.102] (helo=mailhost.raggedclown.net) by post-21.mail.nl.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #1) id 18Ft9O-0007CK-00 for freebsd-chat@freebsd.org; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 09:34:02 +0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mailhost.raggedclown.net (Ragged Clown Mail Gateway [dawn]) with ESMTP id 94BA26A56 for ; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 10:34:01 +0100 (CET) Received: from willow.raggedclown.net (willow.raggedclown.intra [192.168.1.10]) by mailhost.raggedclown.net (Ragged Clown Mail Gateway [dawn]) with ESMTP id 3E0771F2C for ; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 10:33:51 +0100 (CET) Received: by willow.raggedclown.net (Ragged Clown Host [willow], from userid 1009) id B07EF225F8; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 10:33:51 +0100 (CET) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 10:33:51 +0100 From: Cliff Sarginson To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Style(9) question Message-ID: <20021124093351.GB51850@raggedclown.net> References: <3DDF241B.FF30ACE2@mindspring.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.1i X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS 0.3.12pre8 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 02:23:53AM +0100, Brad Knowles wrote: > At 10:45 PM -0800 2002/11/22, Terry Lambert wrote: > > > That means that they are limited to holding in their head only the > > maximum amount of data that can be displayed on a screen at a time, > > so the more non-whitespace data you can display in a limited amount > > of real-estate, the better. > > I know I cut off the smiley. I know. > > On the serious side, this isn't a bad argument. I don't think > it's as good as "we follow the standard because it is the standard", > but it's not bad. > > However, I would observe that screens are getting larger, windows > should be getting larger, and you should be able to have more stuff > on screen at once. Indeed, I would argue that perhaps the problem is > that there is too much stuff on screen at once, and that this has > been a problem for some time. > Oh this is true, true, true ! > > In music, the silences are just as important, if not more > important, than the notes. In print publications, proper use of > white space is just as important as the writing. > > I submit that in coding, less dense spaces caused by things like > braces can help improve the overall readability of the program, and > thus the probability of being able to more correctly maintain it. > Yup, I agree, within limits. > > Or do you really want single-line programs that comprise tens of > thousands of kilobytes (or megabytes) of memory? After all, if the > goal is to cram everything together onto the smallest number of lines > possible, we can just remove all whitespace everywhere. > I worked with a programmer who did just this, He had written his own editor that just cut lines at about column 78, and he wrote program code in a continous succession of such lines, cramming as many statements as possible into the line. Whitespace .. pah ! It was a nightmare fixing his programs when we upgraded the O/S and had to change some things. He refused to do it...(unfortunately he was in a position to get away with this). Oddly enough his programs had never been found to have bugs in them, I mean *never*. The trouble was that he was the only person who could read them. -- Regards Cliff Sarginson The Netherlands [ This mail has been checked as virus-free ] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message