From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,de0abe9655235740 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-10 04:48:03 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!elnk-pas-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3FAF88FD.8020000@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ACM Ada Letters References: <1065708924.347689@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <8pWdnd8im8ToEzeiRVn-iw@gbronline.com> <3FAB95B6.9070008@noplace.com> <3FACE44D.2050500@noplace.com> <3FAE359C.4080705@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:48:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.2.144 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net 1068468483 209.165.2.144 (Mon, 10 Nov 2003 04:48:03 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 04:48:03 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2291 Date: 2003-11-10T12:48:03+00:00 List-Id: Georg Bauhaus wrote: > > No, no, no, the alignment can be done (not overriden) by the > formatting program, either by respecting the space character count, > or by using an alignment algorithm using whatever fonts you have > chosen! You type plain characters. The PP program is Ada-aware, How does it know what fonts I have chosen? It either needs to do it on the fly or it needs to store that information with the program text. Same with possible variations in formatting style, etc. Either you rebuild it every time (and no possible consistencey between when done by my program and when done by yours.) or you have to store some information with the file (and then you need a convention for doing that.) > > So there is no need for: > Yes there is - see above. Yes, you can write some formatting tool that might go do some default actions on Ada source text and it might look half-way nice, but the thing is, someone is going to quickly say "I want Times" or "I Want Arial" or I want "Bookman Old Style" - not to mention a wide range of possible formatting styles. Hence either the tool is extremely limited and fixed in what it does or the user has to specify options every time it is formatting some code, or you have to store formatting information with the code - especially if you want to transmit the code to someone else and have them see it the way you did it. I'm not saying it can't be done - but if most Ada programmers wanted some kind of typesetting capability for their source code, it seems to make sense that the best way to do it would be with some kind of markup kept inside the code. That's basically the way most word processors do it. > > Reminds me of the widespread use of spaces, tabs, and pressing > RETURN in place of using paragraph styles, automatic indenation, > automatic or forced page breaking, automatic keep-together features, > etc. that typesetting software and word processors have had for > some time know... Ahhh, the Good Old Days! :-) I *like* plain-old-ASCII and the limited formatting it makes possible. Its simple. It works. And not everything needs to be gold-plated. For program source code, I find it quite adequate and of minimal fuss. For publishing a magazine, its insufficient - but I don't do that very often. Case in point: Once upon a time, if someone wanted to send a memo around to the staff - they might have hand-scrawled it and xeroxed it and had it going around the office in 15 minutes. Now that same someone might spend hours organizing a memo, complete with clip art and graphics and other stuff to make it look really spiffy. It's a *memo*! Not an illuminated manuscript! The object of the game is to communicate the information quickly and inexpensively and yet word processing has probably made for way more wasted energy than we used to have in this area. You can no longer make a resume or a presentation without sophisticated typesetting and graphic arts. I think its overkill. I'm sure there are ways of auto-formatting Ada source text and using proportional fonts, etc. I just don't think its necessarily very useful or something most programmers want to spend their time doing. Even plain-old-ASCII "pretty printers" have their weaknesses - they often don't format in the manner I personally would like or give you other sorts of mysery. (Like why is it GPS won't let me specify 4 spaces for indent instead of the default 3?) They can be useful, but they often are not the norm for many developers. Maybe there are too many elements of taste in formatting to make it possible to cater to everyone with a program? Maybe not all judgements about what looks good can be codified? MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "Trying is the first step towards failure." -- Homer Simpson ======================================================================