Kevin said:
Quite true about style rules. For example, in our group, we
forbid using the usual (to us, horrible) form of blocks:
if (foo) {
if (bar) {
do_this();
}
}
and instead mandate:
if (foo)
{
if (bar)
{
do_this()
}
}
We find it much easier to see the nesting and catch mistakes
that way.
In terms of being able to see the nesting I have never perceived much
difference between those two styles. I really don't like the style that
goes:-
if (foo)
{
if (bar)
{
do_this()
}
}
- because that style does seem to confuse the relationship between the
contents of a block and the statement that contains them. I also don't
like the way a statement starts at one level of indentation and ends at
another.
Ultimately I think people favour the indenting style that they are most
familiar with, or first learnt. But the benefits of everyone who is
working with the same code using the same indenting style or so obvious
that it is not surprising that organisations should impose such styles
as rules.
As it happens, if I write Java I am required to use your preferred
style. But our style rules for javascript mandate the first style,
partly because it is my preference (I had quite an influence of the
javascript style rules document and none at all over the Java document)
but justified by an explicit desire to keep syntactically similar Java
and javascript visually distinct. At least in part because the two can
appear together in JSP and it is beneficial for the language of
immediate interest to be easily identified. (At least, that is how I
sold my style preference
Many times the "old" ways come from the days of green screen
terminals and limited viewing space. ...
Apart from RPG programmers working on back-office systems for financial
services, I have never even seen anyone working on a green screen.
Strangely though, our Java style document mandates that no single line
of code should be longer than 80 characters, which sounds like a
hang-over from those days.
The upshot is, it's not a huge deal as long as you can adapt
for different situations.
Obviously since it is beneficial for everyone working on the same code
to be using the same style it is necessary to be able to adapt to
whatever style rules apply. But some practices that are essentially a
matter of style are more significant than others. For example, the
(progressive) indenting of blocks is such a good idea that it should be
done regardless of the specific format that such indentation uses. I
suspect that the practice of blocking all - if - statements is more akin
to the practice of indentation in terms of its general benefits for all
programmers (in languages where it is allowed) and so more significant
than the choice of indentation format would be.
Richard.
