On 2007-08-09 23:48:03 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:
> Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > Braces are not a problem: they are kept in a copy-paste, and if for
> > some reason a brace is missing (because you did a mistake), then you'll
> > get a syntax error
>
> Unless, of course, you are programming in C with that pesky...
> if
> foo;
> bar;
>
> ...problem.
Of course, you need to be careful on what you copy-paste. Problems
can also happen with:
foo1;
foo2;
foo3;
if you want to move these three lines, but if you forget the 3rd one.
Now, concerning the C language, there's a reason why it is recommended
to always use braces even when they aren't needed...
> > In Python, you may need to re-indent (correctly!) all what you've
> > copy-pasted, and if you forget an indentation, the syntax will still
> > be valid.
>
> Which is not that hard. Have you done it? Doubt it. I have, many times.
> Say I'm 3 levels deep and paste something 2 levels deep. Like this:
>
> for foo in bar:
> if foo > 200:
> print baz
> else:
> print spam
OK, not in every case. But there are cases where it is still valid.
For instance, if you have:
for foo in bar:
print blah1
print blah2
and you want to paste:
if foo > 200:
print baz
else:
print spam
so that you get:
for foo in bar:
print blah1
if foo > 200:
print baz
else:
print spam
print blah2
which is valid, isn't it? You need to re-indent to:
for foo in bar:
print blah1
if foo > 200:
print baz
else:
print spam
print blah2
and it's too easy to get this wrong. And if you want to check
a posteriori that you (or someone else) did it right, standard
tools like "diff -w" (useful if other languages) won't give you
any valuable information.
> Secondly, as I stated earlier, any programmer's editor will be able to
> indent by blocks.
This is useful. However when the blocks are large (e.g. if they don't
fit in the screen), it's easy to make a mistake.
> I know vim and idle can, pretty sure emacs can as well for those of
> that sect.
The problem with Emacs is that the mark changes too easily. So, this
is not reliable (I always check my changes with "diff" / "diff -w").
> Also, as I said, would you really trust someone who doesn't
> reindent their code so they can read it even if they are cut and
> pasting code with braces?
No, but again, changes made by someone can easily be checked with
"diff -w". Personally, I have all my codes automatically re-indented.
--
Vincent Lefèvre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
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