[email protected] (A. Pagaltzis):
> I was with you up to "easier to read", but uh, where's the
> redundancy and documentation in that example?
It's easier to read because it contains redundant information that documents
the intent of the author better than a raw stream of tokens. That's the whole
point of indenting code at all (in sane languages, anyway).
Another example of layout as redundant documentation that might be easier:
puts("<BLOCKQUOTE>");
put_escaped(quoted_text);
puts("<DIV ALIGN=RIGHT>");
puts("--");
put_escaped(attribution);
puts("</DIV>");
puts("</BLOCKQUOTE>");
Or, layout coming to the aid of comments:
/* name type variable bound_var */
add_symbol("height", REAL, TRUE, &height);
add_symbol("weight", REAL, TRUE, &weight);
add_symbol("buttons", INTEGER, TRUE, &buttons);
In some languages you can bring named arguments to play, but it's still
worthwhile:
add-symbol "height" -type REAL -variable -bind height
add-symbol "weight" -type REAL -variable -bind weight
add-symbol "buttons" -type INTEGER -variable -bind buttons
> Not at all the same thing. Code layout and identifier names play
> in completely different leagues.
But they play the same sport. We're comparing College with Pro, not Rugby
with Cricket.
