From: Euan Mee <xlucid@...>
Date: 2002-05-20T08:58:59+09:00
Subject: Re: ANN: REXML 2.3.3

On 16 May 2002, Tobias Reif wrote (more or less):
> Bob Hutchison wrote:
> 
> > > This doesn't look pretty to me :)
> > 
> > I don't completely disagree with you, however, it does look
> > much more reasonable with real element names.
> > 
> > <person
> >    ><name>Joe</name
> >    ><address
> >       ><street>123 Main St.</street
> >    ></address
> > ></person>
> 
> Still looks ugly to me. There's no agreement to be reached; it's
> about taste (*pretty* printing).

There is a good sound reason other than taste for disliking the 
above.

At least one reason for pretty printing is to make the code 
more readable by a person.

=> things which help readability are good
     things which hurt readability are bad.

I'll define readability here as either  the ability to read the 
same information in the same time with a lowered rate of 
errors, or the ability to read with the same error rate in a 
lowered period of time.  Or some combination of the two, or 
similiar.

The closing broket is part of the description of a given element.

To allow humans to read the element quickly and correctly, 
syntactical parts of an element should be read along with the 
other parts of the element, rather than with parts of a different 
element.

The 'flyback' period required when moving from one line to 
another also interrupts reading flow.

Therefore, closing brokets should be on the same side of a 
new-line boundary as the rest of the element, and ideally this 
should be the only element on the given line.



Cheers,
     Euan
xlucid@users.sourceforge.net

'I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance,
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance'
 - Ogden Nash