Chris,
>Where a space would be present after the keyword. It occurred to me that there could
>potentially be a recognition penalty for the keyword in the first case.
>
>My question is, does anybody know of any psychology of programming or related
>research that can help to solve this dilemma? I can't think of anything off the top
>of my head.
I think the psychology of programming interest is in why people have such
debates. I have to confess in engaging in such debates in my younger years.
Even now I still get irritated by 'bad' spacing.
This is really a visuallization issue. A good book is "Information Visualization"
by Colin Ware, ISBN 1-55860-511-8.
My own view on this subject is that inserting a space decreases the effort
needed to recognise an if. It also reduces the chance of confusion with a
function call. I know of no figures to back these views up. They could be
just the effects of my being practiced in reading code this way. When I look
back at some of the Fortran I once wrote I am amazed anybody could ever
read it (perhaps they couldn't), but then I am out of practice at reading Fortran.
derek
--
Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk
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