Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ut-sally!utah-cs!defun.utah.edu!shebs
From: shebs%defun.utah.edu.uucp@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: code formatting (some amusing musings)
Message-ID: <5262@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 88 17:38:09 GMT
References: <2363@mandrill.CWRU.Edu>
Sender: news@utah-cs.UUCP
Reply-To: shebs%defun.utah.edu.UUCP@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Organization: PASS Research Group
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In article <2363@mandrill.CWRU.Edu> arun@mandrill.UUCP (Arun Lakhotia) writes:

>[O'Keefe on coding style]
>It's sad to see he is on a one man crusade
>to shape the world. I am sure there are other grandmasters who share
>his views and do hope they would speak up sometime.

I'm not a grandmaster, but am a strong believer in the value of programming
style, and have crusaded for it when I've had the opportunity.  Most of the
time the effort seems more like a windmill tourney, however.  Many of the
people attracted to programming seem to take pride in trying to deal with as
much obscure detail as possible, and resist any attempts to reduce the amount
of it.  After trying various approaches (up to and including ridicule), I've
decided that the best way is to flood the world with high-quality and stylish
code.  The recent trend towards publishing significant amounts of source code
in books is encouraging.  Quintus could have a big effect too by licensing
their Prolog library independently of the basic system, for a nominal fee,
or even making it freely available, although that's probably too much to
hope for...  Teach by example, not by abuse!

>Arun Lakhotia

							stan shebs
							shebs@cs.utah.edu