Date: 27 Sep 2001 13:12:45 -0700 From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: code density vs readability Message-ID: <po4rpotmte.rpo@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <p05100334b7d8e6544d17@[194.78.144.27]> References: <20010927141333.A44288@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <p05100334b7d8e6544d17@[194.78.144.27]>
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Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> writes: > If it's so bad, you can always run it through a program to > reformat it afterwards. Indeed, I believe that the judicious > use of formatting programs can help set a common project-wide > "style" to which all code will comply, because all code gets fed > through the formatter before being submitted. So it can be uniformly bad. But I do think that's the best plan. As a flunky programmer I used to get very upset when lame project standards would be imposed on some people (eg, me) while gross violations by some others would be tolerated. Rambling on: One thing going for the lots-of-space theory is just that the alternative has significant problems. I don't mean "no space"; I mean "judicial space". First, of course, judgements differ. Second, spaces (esp. blank lines) tend to categorize (usually unlabeled) things and often results in improper categorization to meet the rules of standards or esthetics or carelessness. Spacing most everything is rather, in this regard, like having no spaces at all where there is no improper categorization since there is no categorization. I find this esp. true regarding horizontal spacing. I like lots of space. The only downside I see is the reduction of context in an editor, but I find that less important, esp. given modern editor window sizes. It can also depend a lot on one's editor/font settings. Editors can have greatly differing sizes and ratios of character/line sizes and spaces between same. Degrading eyesight is another important factor. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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