begin quoting Chuck Esterbrook as of Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 01:26:30AM -0800: > On Jan 2, 2008 11:07 AM, David Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip] > > Honestly, lack of proper indentation support would be enough to keep me > > from using a language. > > I'm counting keystrokes. In Python, I think the count is 3: Shift + :; > then Enter
Do shifts really count as a separate keystroke, and not, say, half a keystroke? (Or as two?) > In Cobra, it's 2: Enter Tab Why is this important? I mean, it's clever and all. But that's a seriously minor optimization, and I've gotten really leery about undue concern with optimization. Today I floated an assertion that if you can't save about six characters by shortening a variable name, you really ought to think twice about truncating a word or removing vowels to shorten a variable name. [That is, "sen" is not an acceptable shortening of "sensor", and neither is "snsr", even for a local temporary variable. But "s", oddly enough, probably would be, since it's a signficant savings, which is okay for a temporary variable.)] I spend a lot more time revising (editing) my code than I do /creating/ it. Counting keystrokes seem like a false gain over the life of a program. Hm... and don't you lose that keystroke savings by having stuff like "as" and "of" as keywords? (If I'm reading the examples correctly, you use "i as int" instead of "int i", which is an additional 3 keystrokes... [snip] > > You're defining the language, so you get to decide how much is style vs how > > much is enforced. > > True, but most of my conventions are conventional. Capped classes. > Lower case args. I admit I'm taking it further than most languages, > but that's the point: semi-normalized syntax. ...integer variables could start with i, j, k, or l ... ;-) [snip] > > English grammar is a terrible place to look for inspiration for a > > programming language. Worked for perl, didn't it? :) > > In fact, _all_ spoken human languages are riddled > > with inconsistencies, often around the core aspects of the languages > > (prepositions, to-be, etc). > > Sure, but my point still stands even with the inconsistencies you > mentioned: We have lots of rules about English capitalization, > punctuation and so on that enable us to read a wide variety of texts. > I think the challenge here is that by the time people reach adulthood, > these rules are so ingrained that they're taken for granted. I don't > think people realize how much benefit they get from these rules. ...and how they can be broken for effect. I actually would be really okay with a compiler that *complained* about indentation inconsistencies. Honest! [snip] -- They say to be "forgiving in what you accept" But "not whining" is not part of that precept. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
