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From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Tradition Lisp code formatting
Message-ID: <6472@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 24 Jun 91 08:44:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: goanna.6472
References: <20899@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <1991Jun23.190212.9552@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 20

In article <20899@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> sboswell@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (....What Is?....) writes:
>How did the traditional style of Lisp code turn out to be so crunched
>together?
[... example showing a more blocky format than the traditional lisp...]

When I started out using Lisp I was using punched cards and a B6700.
I laid my Lisp code out just like my Algol code.
    (if <test>
	<then>
	<else>
    )
The thing that made the difference was that I eventually learned to READ
Lisp as well as to WRITE it.  I discovered that when reading good Lisp code
you ignore most of the parentheses.  It's up to the editor to make sure that
parentheses are balanced, I should just be looking at the words and the
layout.  Why highlight something that a fast reader isn't concerned with?
My Lisp layout conventions aren't _quite_ identical to the conventional
style, but they are a _lot_ closer than they used to be.
-- 
I agree with Jim Giles about many of the deficiencies of present UNIX.