Compare source code

Seebs usenet-nospam at seebs.net
Tue Nov 2 15:28:05 EDT 2010


On 2010-11-02, Grant Edwards <invalid at invalid.invalid> wrote:
> And you think compatibility with your broken e-mail server is a good
> reason to change the syntax of a programming language?

No.  I never said that.

>> Many editors helpfully convert spaces to tabs by default some or all
>> of the time.  And so on.

> Such editors are broken.

If I use an editor for twenty years, and it works beautifully with fifteen
different programming languages across five operating systems, and someone
comes along with a file format which tends to silently break when treated
the same way, my first response is not to blame the editor.

> I think it's brilliant (indentation that actually means something, not
> scanf).

It is.  However, it's also brittle.

>> The "problem" it fixes is something that's hardly ever been a problem
>> for me in C or related languages -- and which could be completely
>> eliminated by automated indenters, which were actually conceptually
>> possible.

> They're only possible if you put redundant block markers in the
> source.

Yes.  Or make the block markers not-redundant.

> Then you're doing something terribly wrong.  I find indentation-based
> structure to be completely effortless.

And it is *ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN* that, if any two people have different
experiences of how easy or hard something is, it's because one of them
is doing something wrong, right?

Because people are *never* actually different.  There is no such thing
as "preferences".  There is no such thing as a "matter of taste".  No,
no.  If one person finds something comfortable, and another dislikes it,
it's because the second one is *doing something terribly wrong*.

> Are you using an editor that
> doesn't have a Python mode?

Yes.  I haven't used "modes" in editors until now.  I've never needed to.
Every other file format I work with is robust about this.

-s
-- 
Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed.  Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam at seebs.net
http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures
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I am not speaking for my employer, although they do rent some of my opinions.



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