"Usability, the Soul of Python"

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <hosnrh$6na$1 at news.eternal-september.org>, Alf P. Steinbach 
wrote:

> This is just unsubstantiated opinion, but worse, it makes a tacit
> assumption that there is "best" way to do indentation. However, most
> programmers fall into that trap, and I've done it myself.

Having used so many different languages over the years, I have settled on a 
reasonably common set of indentation conventions that work across most of 
them.

The only one that currently annoys me is JavaScript, because its semicolons-
are-optional rule means that certain ways I write statements continued 
across multiple lines are interpreted as prematurely completing the 
statement.

In revenge for that, I refuse to put optional semicolons in my JavaScript 
code altogether.

> I may or may not have been responsible for the similarly impractical
> compromise convention of using three spaces per indentation level. At
> least, in one big meeting the question about number of spaces was raised
> by the speaker, and I replied from the benches, just in jest, "three!".
> And that was it (perhaps).

I use four. Why four? Because it’s divisible by two. Because I use the half-
step (two columns) for lines containing nothing but bracketing symbols:

    for (i = 99; i > 0; --i)
       {
         printf("%d slabs of spam in my mail!\n", i);
         printf("%d slabs of spam,\n", i);
         printf("Send one to abuse and Just Hit Delete,\n");
         printf("%d slabs of spam in my mail!\n\n", i - 1);
       } /*for*/

    for i := 99 downto 1 do
      begin
         writeln(i, " slabs of spam in my mail!");
         writeln(i, " slabs of spam,");
         writeln("Send one to abuse and Just Hit Delete,");
         writeln(i - 1, " slabs of spam in my mail!\n\n")
      end {for}

Actually this looks like another opportunity for a loop-with-exit-in-the-
middle:

    for (i = 99;;)
      {
         printf("%d slabs of spam in my mail!\n", i);
         printf("%d slabs of spam,\n", i);
         printf("Send one to abuse and Just Hit Delete,\n");
         --i;
         if (i == 0)
            break;
         printf("%d slabs of spam in my mail!\n\n", i);
      } /*for*/