Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!decvax!ima!cfisun!lakart!dg
From: dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Indentation for parsing (was Re: Block Closure (was Re: FOR loops))
Message-ID: <94@lakart.UUCP>
Date: 6 May 88 18:22:33 GMT
References: <4625@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Organization: Lake - The systems people
Lines: 46

From article <4625@ihlpf.ATT.COM>, by nevin1@ihlpf.ATT.COM (00704a-Liber):
> In article <5992@utcsri.UUCP> norvell@utcsri.UUCP (Theodore Stevens Norvell) writes:
>>The discussion about using indentation to indicate program structure is
>>interesting to me as I have designed a language which does exactly this
>>and written a compiler for it. .....
> 
> This kind of stuff is better enforced by language-sensitive editors and
> pretty-printers, not compilers. .....

And then there's always OCCAM

> ..... And without
> language-sensitive editors and/or pretty-printers, it is very hard always
> getting the indentation right.

This last comment almost deserves a flame. What is needed to produce
correctly indented source code with any editor (be it vi, VEDIT or whatever)
is *_DISCIPLINE_*. In 1980 at university, I decided on a coding style:

	if (test)
	{
	    statement;
	    statement;
	    for (xyz; abc; foo)
		statement;
	}

And I stick to it militantly - 8 years worth of it. It is now so ingrained
that I do it as a reflex. ALWAYS produces readable code, and I can do a

'egrep "[{}]" \!*'

to look for lines that contain {s and }s, and spot mismatced {}s in a twinkle.
This is one of my objections to the other style:

	if (test) {
	    statement; .....

It is too easy to mismatch, as you have to hunt for the {

I've got my asbestos suit ready for the inevitable flames :-) :-) :-)
-- 
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