From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Nov 23 18:25:27 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 BD44737B401; Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:25:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from excalibur.skynet.be (excalibur.skynet.be [195.238.3.90]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9840343E4A; Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:25:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from brad.knowles@skynet.be) Received: from [192.168.0.3] (ip-26.shub-internet.org [194.78.144.26] (may be forged)) by excalibur.skynet.be (8.11.6/8.11.6/Skynet-OUT-2.20) with ESMTP id gAO2PHd04376; Sun, 24 Nov 2002 03:25:17 +0100 (MET) (envelope-from ) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bs663385@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3DDF241B.FF30ACE2@mindspring.com> References: <3DDF241B.FF30ACE2@mindspring.com> X-Grok: +++ath X-WebTV-Stationery: Standard; BGColor=black; TextColor=black Reply-By: Wed, 1 Jan 1984 12:34:56 +0100 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 02:23:53 +0100 To: Terry Lambert From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: Style(9) question Cc: Brad Knowles , John Baldwin , Jonathon McKitrick , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" 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 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. 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. 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. -- Brad Knowles, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E W+++(--) N+ !w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++) tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message