Hi,

At Wed, 23 May 2012 12:54:18 -0400 (EDT),
David A Wheeler wrote:
> 
> Alpheus Madsen <alpheus.mad...@gmail.com>
> > One thought I've been wanting to experiment with, but haven't had the time 
> > to attempt to implement, is to use a double-indent to indicate groups.
> 
> I think that's even worse.  It's very unreadable.  It's also ambiguous for 
> the first indent; does "two spaces" mean an indent of two spaces, or a 
> double-indent for one-space indenting?

Using double indent had also been my first idea, but I discarded it, because 
the meaning of the double indent would not be obvious without the less-indented 
line which comes later - it would be ambigous.

example:

(let 
     ((a b)(c d)) 
   (e))

becomes

let
    a b
    c d
  e

Imagine 5 let arguments and you cannot know anymore if it’s double-indented.

Compare

let
  .
    a b
    c d
  e

The reason why I chose the . is to avoid adding any new syntax elements. . is 
already used to create cons-cels, but it has little use on its own:

(if (equal (. (quote "abc")) (quote "abc")) t)

; this syntax would be invalid with the .-notation.
if 
  equal
    .
      quote "abc"
    quote "abc"
t

Also I like about the . that it is so small: It is almost like double indent, 
but explicit. And it scales:

(a (((((b c))))))
→
a
  .
    .
      .
        .
          b c

here it is explicit what happens, even though the code is evil.

Best wishes,
Arne

PS: Only answering now, because I we just moved, so I was overloaded for quite 
some time.

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