On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Guy Lapalme wrote:
> this explanation is very good but the real confusion comes from the fact
> that probably there were some TAB characters in the original program. In the
> text editor used for typing the program the tabs stops were 4 spaces apart
> as they are usually nowadays because otherwise programs become too wide...
>
[...]
>
> Concrete suggestions about this any one?
Nothing which has to with Haskell, but:
I think it's a bad idea to expand tabstops to something other then the
"standard" (historic?) positions, i.e. 8 spaces apart. Nearly every editor can
handle indentation independent of the TAB character, for example indentation
in vi (^T) uses the parameter "shiftwidth" for indentation. Then, *leading*
spaces are compressed to tabstops, if appropriate. For example,
this line has been indented three times with ^T,
where shiftwidth is 4. The line should start with a tabstop, followed by 4
spaces.
Regarding to the layout rule, many people think that it's a horror from a
sound syntax lover's point of view. Some years ago, when I wrote a Haskell
parser for fun, I shared this opinion.
However, although the layout rule is a nightmare to implement, it makes also
Haskell programs not only easy to read, but sometimes to look even beautyful
(wrt to programs in other languages).
Bye,
Kili
ps: apropos beauty of programs: does anyone here ever heared of the
language called "J"?
--
Nunja! Wenn man erst einmal anf�ngt zu denken, dann ist es wie
eine Sucht. Man kommt nicht mehr los davon.
[WoKo in dag�, 28.11.2000]
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