Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbtopaz-1.8; site ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!mwm From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: C Indentation Survey Results (long...) Message-ID: <904@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Wed, 24-Apr-85 22:17:54 EST Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.904 Posted: Wed Apr 24 22:17:54 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 01:34:38 EST References: <9930@brl-tgr.ARPA> <381@busch.UUCP> <5497@utzoo.UUCP> <350@gumby.UUCP> <5521@utzoo.UUCP> Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 32 [C blows green road runners.] In article <5521@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >I find it hard to imagine anything more unprofessional than making >your code harder for other people to read, just because you happen >to like it that way. (Obviously I am talking about production software, >not for-author's-use-only tinkering, but remember that code sometimes >slides across the boundary unofficially.) In my experience code always slides across the boundary, unless you throw it away. That takes the point out of trying to preserve a style that you find easy to read. On the other hand: Whenever I read/write code, I prefer it in a format that I find easy to read. The AI community found the solution to the problem of different code formatting styles two (or more?) decades ago: customizable pretty printers (beautifiers, if you must). You read your code into the editor, notice that the format is "ugly", and tell the editor to format it the way you like it. The next person to come along goes through the same process. For an organization, you prepare a "standard" setting for the pretty printer hooks, and the code goes into that format when you check it into *cs. Everybody is happy, as they can work on the code in their favorite format (or non-format, if that's the case), and all the organizational listing look alike. What more could you want? Therefore, I am not going to make my life more difficult by trying to change my coding style to something less readable, I'm going to live with a dual standard (and force everybody else who wishes to work on my code to do the same) until I get around to writing a customizable pretty printer.