alternatives to making blocks like { } or other ??

[Michael Chermside]

a brace and either way it throws the logic off. I created a
bug in one of
my programs recently just by adding logging. It looked like this:

if (some_complicated_condition)
log_message("Error has occurred: taking corrective action");
take_corrective_action();

Tim Williams replies:

But here if there were braces, the logic would be right. Indentation
wouldn't matter.
if (some_complicated_condition) {
log_message("Error has occurred: taking corrective action");
take_corrective_action();
}

If you were writing in Python the logic would be right also. I suppose
you have one valid point... a language which *required* braces
everywhere wouldn't be susceptable to this kind of error. But that
rules out C, C++, Java, even things like Pascal.

My second example was:

When I read through the code it LOOKED like it worked, but of course
the corrective action was taken even when it wasn't needed. I've also
seen more complex examples like this:

if (condition_1) {
code_1;
} else if (condition_2)
if (condition_2_a) {
code_2_a;
}
// nothing to do for 2b
else {
code_3;
}

To which Tim replies:

Looks like an argument for braces to me.

Not at all. If written in Python, we have this:

if condition_1:
code_1
elif condition_2:
if condition_2_a:
code_2_a
# nothing to do for 2b
else
code_3

which is correct (not to mention being shorter).

I then gave this example:

But the ones that I hate the MOST are the ones that my unit
tests can't
catch. A typical example looks like this:

if (condition) {
code;
goes;
here;
} else {
more;
code;
}

Notice how that one line ("here;") is indented wrong? Obviously, that
doesn't meet our coding standards, yet there's no way for the compiler
to catch it, because the compiler looks only at the braces and ignores
the indentation!

And Tim replies:

Here again indentation doesn't matter. A smart editor could do a
"pretty-print" for you using the braces. I agree that *visually*
indentation w/o the braces are nice, but as a check for having code
in the right logical block, it's just too easy have a stray extra or
missing space (for me anyway) that would throw everything off. Isn't
just one space needed in Python to signify a different block?

You see, this is exactly my point. Indentation DOES matter... even
in C. It just doesn't matter TO THE COMPILER. But it still matters
to those who have to read it and edit it. In Python, even a *dumb*
editor will "pretty-print" for you.

Your last question suggests a possible explanation. Perhaps you
think that Python code will execute incorrectly if a single extra
space is typed someplace. That simply isn't true. Python relies on
two different cues to indicate a block... one is the indentation,
and the other is the presence of a colon (and a statement like
"if" or "def" which can introduce a block) on the previous line.
If you accidently type an extra space, creating something like
this:

if condition:
do()
some()
stuff()

....then the compiler will find a syntax error (at compile-time, not
runtime) and complain about inconsistant indentation. This lets you
fix indentation mistakes. If you WANT to write code like this:


if (condition) {
do();
some();
stuff();
}

then you're out of luck (and crazy to boot!). But if mis-indented
code is just an accident of messed up typing, then Python helps you
to catch the mistake. I could similarily complain about C breaking
every time I type an accidental "{" in the middle of my code, but
the argument would carry no weight because the compiler would
catch such a mistake at the next compile. And that's just what the
Python compiler will do for randomly typed spaces.

-- Michael Chermside

 

[John Roth]

Tim Williams replies:

If you were writing in Python the logic would be right also. I suppose
you have one valid point... a language which *required* braces
everywhere wouldn't be susceptable to this kind of error. But that
rules out C, C++, Java, even things like Pascal.

When I was studying Ruby, I thought about this a lot. The
conclusion I came to is that Ruby actually did it right.

There are two things about braces. One is that the languages
that use them (mostly derived from Algol or Pascal) are
written so that you can do one-liners. You can put a program
with 10k of code onto one line! The only thing the compiler
uses lines for is to issue diagnostics. (Of course, it wouldn't
be readable).

The second thing is that many of them try to optimize out the
common case of zero or one statements in a block so you don't
have to use braces for that. Unfortunately, that seems to cause
as many problems as it solves, at least from the number of errors
standpoint.

If you think about it, the only thing you need to know is where
the end of a block is. You only need to know where the beginning
is if it's completely optional - think of Ruby's method of injecting
a block into a method call. There are no cases in Python where
the block is optional, so the situation doesn't arise. If I have an if
statement, the current block (in Ruby) ends with one of three things:
an elsif, an else, or an end. What you get for that extra end is a
cleanly nestable way of going back to statement syntax in the
middle of an expression, and no arguements about indentation
sensitivity.

John Roth