RE: indentation (was Re: About the article) in "The DSSSList Digest V3 #27"

[MARK.WROTH@xxxxxxxxxxx (Wroth, Mark)]

Not really in response to Karl, but on the same topic:

	It may be easy to write code where all of the close parentheses are
simply appended to the end of the block, but it is not (IMHO) opinion easier
to read and maintain the resulting code -- and since I tend to spend much
more time maintaining code than writing it the first time, this is an
important distinction to me.

	But it seems to me the point Didier is trying to make is not that
"block style" is morally superior in some sense, but that it is better
suited to a specific purpose: teaching/selling DSSSL outside the existing
community.  I'm inclined to agree.  While there are LISP/Scheme programmers
out there, C, C++, Java etc. appear to be much more common, and (in my
moderate experience) the block style is much more common.  To the extent
that's true (and I will grant that it varies with the particular audience),
changing the style of "blocking" as you try to teach someone a new concept
unrelated to the indentation/blocking/grouping style seems to be making
things more difficult for the student than is strictly necessary.  If the
idea were to persuade the student that this is a hard subject, that might be
a good thing ....

(FWIW, I use emacs as my primary editor :-)

Mark
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Date: 01 May 1999 22:22:56 +0200
From: Karl Eichwalder <ke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: About the article

"Didier PH Martin" <martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

|   Simply that because of the way we write dsssl scripts, people new to
|   this language find it hard to find their way with all the )))).

As Adam said: Use a decent editor (Emacs, e.g.)!  You're doing more harm
than good with your "style rules".

And please, never think people are to stupid to learn useful things.

- -- 
Karl Eichwalder


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