Xref: utzoo comp.graphics:3721 comp.text:2820
Path: utzoo!dciem!trigraph!john
From: john@trigraph.UUCP (John Chew)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,comp.text
Subject: Re: Gray-scale antialiasing (yes, it can work)
Message-ID: <426@trigraph.UUCP>
Date: 25 Nov 88 16:28:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: trigraph.426
References: <74013@sun.uucp> <148@internal.Apple.COM> <4763@mnetor.UUCP> <703@laura.UUCP> <2273@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: poslfit@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca
Organization: Trigraph Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 41

In article <2273@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In other languages it's often desirable to line up certain lexical units of
>the language that have nothing to do with indentation. This becomes extremely
>hard with a variable-width font. Tabs can help with indentation, but unless
>your source file contains a lot of formatting commands, how would you do this:
>
>char *macbuf[256], ungetbuf[256];         /* Buffers for pushback and macros */
>char c_macro=128;                                           /* current macro */
>char *macptr = "";                   /* Pointer to currently executing macro */
>char *ungetptr = ungetbuf;              /* Pointer to pushed-back characters */

How about:

char *macbuf[256], ungetbuf[256];    /* Buffers for pushback and macros */
char c_macro=128;                    /* current macro */
char *macptr = "";                   /* Pointer to currently executing macro */
char *ungetptr = ungetbuf;           /* Pointer to pushed-back characters */

(where the comments are all at the same tab stop)?  I never use right-
aligned comments as (i) I think they look ugly (just my own aesthetics)
(ii) I'm too used to working with limited disk space and look at the
space characters needed to right-align things as an extravagant waste
of disk space, and (iii) as you said, it's very difficult to do so with
variable-width fonts :-).

I use variable-width fonts when programming in Lightspeed (I mean THINK)
C on my Mac, because I find them easier and more pleasant to read, and
because they tend to be denser on average than fixed width fonts.

The only reasons I would consider not using variable-width fonts are:
(i) as you said, it is difficult to measure significant repeated
white space (not a situation that comes up frequently in my code),
and (ii) if I wish to distribute my code to more primitive systems
that do not support my fonts, it will need to be re-formatted.

John Chew

-- 
john j. chew, iii   		  phone: +1 416 363 8841     AppleLink: CDA0329
trigraph, inc., toronto, canada   {uunet!utai!utcsri,utgpu,utzoo}!trigraph!john
dept. of math., u. of toronto     poslfit@{utorgpu.bitnet,gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca}