Subj : Re: Is well written code a rare species ?
To   : comp.programming
From : Chris Sonnack
Date : Mon Aug 15 2005 08:57 pm

Joe Butler writes:

> ...got into the habit of 'attaching' the assignment operator to
> the assignee.   And separating both 'things' (can't recall their
> tecky name) with spaces during a comparison, e.g. if(x == 0).
> It's another visual clue that makes these things stand out to me...

Huh!  Interesting trick!!

> I guess that x= 0 is not as symetrical as x == 0..

I'm a bugger for symmetry, which is why it looks so odd to me.  ;-\

> And seeing the 'for' with a space after it, I always wonder how people that
> were brought up during maths lessons on f(x) rather than f (x) [I assume all
> maths teaches this layout - i.e. no space after the 'f'] end up writing
> 'functions' as function (x) rather than function(x) with no space.  It's
> only a very minor thing, but it makes me wonder, anyway.
> 
> e.g.
> 
> sin(x)
> sin (x)
> 
> one is natural, the other is somehow disjointed for me.

There's one I've never made up my mind about in 30 years.  No space often
looks cluttered to me, but sometimes the space looks too open.  It's to
the point I don't think about it anymore, just let my fingers do what
they will.

On the rare occasions I do think about it, my current semi-preference is
to use a space on language constructs, like if () and while (), but not
in function calls.

I suppose this is because I've NEVER liked if(x==3) or while(foo), but
I don't have much trouble (given a clean font and decent display) with
See_The_Man(x, y, z).

Don't know if it has anything to do with math class...that was a LONG,
LONG time ago!

-- 
|_ CJSonnack <Chris@Sonnack.com> _____________| How's my programming? |
|_ http://www.Sonnack.com/ ___________________| Call: 1-800-DEV-NULL  |
|_____________________________________________|_______________________|

.