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Date:      Sat, 23 Nov 2002 10:55:02 +0100
From:      Cliff Sarginson <cls@raggedclown.net>
To:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Style(9) question
Message-ID:  <20021123095502.GB11348@raggedclown.net>
In-Reply-To: <3DDF241B.FF30ACE2@mindspring.com>
References:  <XFMail.20021122160808.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <a05200f1eba04a864625b@[192.168.0.3]> <3DDF241B.FF30ACE2@mindspring.com>

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On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 10:45:47PM -0800, Terry Lambert wrote:
> Brad Knowles wrote:
> > At 4:08 PM -0500 2002/11/22, John Baldwin wrote:
> > >  The reason to not put them in is to avoid wasting screen real-estate
> > >  on mostly blank lines.  You also errantly assume that you will always
> > >  come back and add more statements later. :)
> > 
> >         I'm sorry.  Why do we care about screen real-estate and having
> > mostly blank lines, if this might help us write more correct and
> > secure programs?  And might help us write code that can be more
> > easily managed in the future?
> 
> Hard as this is to believe, some people don't have eidetic memories,
> and they're not just "faking it" so they can pretend not to remember
> some inconvenient fact.
> 
> 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.
> 
Psychologically speaking I think this is not necessarily true.
Programs aside there can be too much information on a screen, a
multitude of web-sites are like this. The logical conclusion (although I
don't think it is the one you are trying to make btw) is that you should
have multiple statements on a line. 
I am fairly keen on a the rather ad-hoc "rule" that if you cannot see the 
whole of a "C" function on the
screen at the same time then you need to re-think it out. The exception 
to this being functions that are simply decision-makers, such as a long
"switch" that simply sets flags etc.

-- 
Regards
   Cliff Sarginson 
   The Netherlands

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