allow line break at operators

[rantingrick]

On Aug 12, 11:33 am, Seebs <usenet-nos... at seebs.net> wrote:
>
> My brain has quirks.  Some people call them defects, some don't, but it
> really doesn't matter; there are things about which my brain is just plain
> unreliable and I rely moderately heavily on extra visual cues to reduce
> the frequency with which I get things wrong when skimming.

I think that really boils down to you refusing to open your eyes up to
new ways of doing things. You are clutching the past and it is taking
you down with it. Pry your lips from Ritchie's left teet and stop
slurping that "brace" milk; because it is polluting your mind!

> > When you're driving on a
> > two lane highway that becomes one lane, would you forget to merge
> > (OUTDENT) simply because the "merge sign" was missing?
>
> No, because the *LANE BOUNDARIES* would move.

The "lane boundaries" will also move whilst reading code that uses the
indent/dedent paradigm. Are you honestly telling me that you will skip
over a four spaced dedent without seeing it however you can easily
spot a single closing brace and instantly "know" which corresponding
opener brace to which it referrers without looking, and counting, and
wasting time? Sorry, i just don't believe you.

> I propose we extend it to expression processing in general.  Instead
> of writing
>         a = (x + y) * z
> let's just write
>         a = (x + y * z

I'm glad you brought this up! How about this instead:

    a = x + y * z

...where the calculation is NOT subject to operator precedence? I
always hated using parenthesis in mathematical calculations. All math
should resolve in a linear fashion. 3+3*2 should always be 12 and NOT
9!

> It's obvious that no one would have needed to introduce parentheses here
> unless they wanted to bind the + more closely than the *, so the ) is
> just noise and not needed.

I would even go as far to use a special set of brackets for linear
calculations before using only one, or playing the precedence game.

> > As much as we love people getting on board we are not about to
> > sacrifice our strong beliefs in clean source code just so you and
> > other hardwired C programmers will come along.
>
> But you will happily insult people and call them names in order to
> keep them from having anything to listen to?

I am not trying to discredit you simply by disagreeing with you. I
have offered facts as to why significant indention is far superior to
braces and yet you continue to use the same emotionally charged babble
in your defense. When you offer some real facts then i will give then
just consideration, until then i will "try" to enlighten you of the
merits of significant indentation.