From: Ryo Furue Date: 2009-05-21T05:40:08+09:00 Subject: Re: Pythonic indentation (or: beating a dead horse) On May 20, 9:50 am, Gregory Brown wrote: > On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Juan Zanos wrote: > > > On May 20, 2009, at 2:51 PM, Rick DeNatale wrote: > > >> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 2:35 PM, J Haas wrote: > > >>> On May 20, 8:51 am, Rick DeNatale wrote: > > >>>> Seriously, if you measure things by avoiding extra keystrokes, get a > >>>> better editor.  I value readability over parsimony of lexical items. > > >>> Cluttering up your code with "end" everywhere makes it less readable, > >>> not more. > > >> Honestly, that's subjective. Some people prefer delimiters some don't. > > > Is it subjective?   Neither method is ambiguous.  So no problem there  But > >  scrolling 16% more often?   That must have some cost to readability. > > If you break up code into more files, or use a folding editor, or use > an editor that lets you jump to code by a method name, scrolling is a > non-issue. > > Rick's point remains.  If this is an issue you're facing, get a better editor. But, the amount of meaningful code displayed in a single screenshot still suffers. A screenful is a chunk of code you can see without scrolling or jumping. The more meaning it contains, the better you understand the code (as long as the meaning is cleanly laid out, of course). The point, I think, is what you gain by having "end"s and what you lose. Since the gain is much smaller ON THE PROGRAMMERS' PART than the loss, it's better NOT to have "end"s. The lack of "end"s may be a headache for compiler writers. I don't know if it's the case. I have the same opinion as the OP, from my tiny experience with Haskell. After only an hour or so of Haskell programming, I already appreciated the blessing of not being forced to add an extra line just to close a block. An "end" line doesn't add any meaning but takes up a line. Regards, Ryo