Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Well, it might or might not be more readable. Some of that is subjective 
judgement. I like fixed fonts because it allows me to make things line 
up in the source code and that often contributes (in my mind - maybe not 
others) to better readability. Such as aligning parameter lists so 
everything is in columns or a series of assignment statements with all 
the ":=" lined up, etc. Sometimes it helps with identifiers as well if 
they have fixed size fonts to make parts of the names align. Some of 
that might just be personal taste or an over-organized mind. (Can you 
say "Obsessive-Compulsive"? I *like* the way you say that!)

How would you propose to get that capability with proportional fonts in 
some manner that still allowed the source to be compilable? (I might 
imagine a word processor inserting tab stops and other formatting info 
into the code, but that's not part of the Ada standard and there isn't 
any guaranteed way to be sure it would be represented the same way by 
more than one editor.) That's why sometimes just plain old ASCII with 
proportional font representation is the best way to go - its simple, 
easy to implement, consistent across numerous apps, etc., and it lets 
you control format fairly well.

MDC


Robert A Duff wrote:
> 
> Why do we write and read source code in fixed-width fonts?
> I usually do, and most folks do.
> But variable width is certainly more readable.



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