And it alls starts with the language specs still being written at the
abstraction level of a concrete syntax. Chapter 1: Tokenization.
Peter
Joshua Marinacci wrote:
> RANT!
>
> Why, in the 21st century, are we still writing code with ascii symbols
> in text editors, and worried about the exact indentation and whether
> to use tabs, spaces, etc?!!
>
> Since the IDE knows the structure of our code, why aren't we just
> sharing ASTs directly, letting your IDE format it to your desire, and
> only sharing the underlying AST with your fellow developers. Encoding,
> spaces, braces, etc. is a detail that only matters when presented to
> the human.
>
> What we do today is like editing image files from the commandline!
>
> On Sep 9, 2009, at 7:32 PM, Ryan Waterer wrote:
>
>> While experienced programmers might not worry about the braces on a
>> single line, they become invaluable to any junior programmers. I've
>> trained a few in which they couldn't understand why the following
>> code segment simply stopped working. (Let's not even start a
>> discussion about System.out.println as a valid debugging tool, ok?
>> This is just an example of a n00blet mistake )
>>
>> for (int y = 0; y < lines; y++)
>> for (int x = 0; x < columns; x++)
>> System.out.println("The sum is: " + sum);
>> sum += cells[y][x];
>>
>>
>> I agree that the braces add a bit of "clutter" to the visual look and
>> feel of code. However, I feel that it helps with the overall
>> maintainability of the code and therefore, I disregard the way that
>> it looks.
>>
>> --Ryan
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 8:24 PM, Jess Holle <[email protected]
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> I'll agree on the newlines and indents, but the braces are silly.
>>
>> One might debate the extra whitespace inside the ()'s, but I find
>> it more readable with the whitespace -- to each his/her own in
>> that regard.
>>
>>
>> TorNorbye wrote:
>>> On Sep 9, 5:27 pm, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]>
>>> <mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Here's a line from my code:
>>>>
>>>> for ( int y = 0 ; x < lines ; y++ ) for ( int x = 0 ; x < columns ; x+
>>>> + ) sum += cells[y][x];
>>>>
>>> I guess that's where we disagree.
>>>
>>> for (int y = 0; y < lines; y++) {
>>> for (int x = 0; x < columns; x++) {
>>> sum += cells[y][x];
>>> }
>>> }
>>>
>>> is IMHO better because:
>>> (a) I can see immediately that I'm dealing with a nested construct
>>> here, and that's it's O(n^2)
>>> (b) I can more easily set breakpoints on individual statements of this
>>> code while debugging - and similarly other "line oriented" operations
>>> (like quickfixes etc) get more cluttery when it's all on one line.
>>> Profiling data / statement counts / code coverage highlighting for the
>>> line is also trickier when you mash multiple statements into one line.
>>> (c) I think it's less likely that I would have made the "x < lines"
>>> error that was in your code when typing it this way because the
>>> handling of y and x were done separately on separate lines (though
>>> this is a bit speculative)
>>> (d) I removed your spaces inside the parentheses, because they are
>>> Bad! Bad!
>>>
>>> (Ok c and d are padding)
>>>
>>> I am -not- looking to minimize the number of lines needed to express
>>> code. If I wanted that, I'd be coding in Perl. I deliberately add
>>> newlines to make the code more airy and to group logical operations
>>> together. I always insert a newline before the final return-statement
>>> from a function etc.
>>>
>>> I think the extra vertical space you've gained, which arguably could
>>> help you orient yourself in your code by showing more of the
>>> surrounding context, is lost because the code itself is denser and
>>> more difficult to visually scan.
>>>
>>> Oh no, a formatting flamewar -- what have I gotten myself into?
>>>
>>> -- Tor
>>>
>>> P.S. No tabs!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> >
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