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From: Martti Halminen <martti.halminen@kolumbus.fi>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: I want to ask you All an advice, please
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 15:06:59 +0200
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Date: 2002-11-15T15:06:59+02:00
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AG wrote:
> 
> "Martti Halminen" <martti.halminen@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
> news:3DD3C19A.C0DAD898@kolumbus.fi...
> > Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
> > > How many levels of nested function application can a human being
> > > remember? Try
> > >   (+ 3 (* 4 (+ 7 6 (- 5 1)) (/ 4 (+ 5 6)))
> > > "by hand" for an easy example. The tree isn't unusually high.
> 
> >
> > Few Lisp programmers would write it like that.
> >
> > (+ 3 (* 4
> > (+ 7 6 (- 5 1))
> > (/ 4 (+ 5 6))))
> > would be more likely to be found in actual code.
> > The trick in reading Lisp is to leave the bellyaching about parentheses
> > to the compiler and editor, and use the indentation to read the code
> > structure.
> 
> Unfortunately, in your own example, as posted, there are no visible
> indentations. 

When the message was sent, it did have indentation, and still has when
looked at in Google, for example. If you are reading it with a
newsreader which with proportional fonts or otherwise clobbers the
whitespace, that is your problem.

The original version, with leading whitespace converted to underlines:

(+ 3 (* 4
________(+ 7 6 (- 5 1))
________(/ 4 (+ 5 6))))

- Not that this is in any way a realistic code example, anyway.

--