Re: Language Choice and Coding style

[ucaa2385@alpha1.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de (Peter Hermann)]

Phil Howard (phoward@sunsrv13.clr.com) wrote:
: Certainly programmers don't agree on what the common standard _should_ be.
: We see that here if we dare describe our preferences.

This is exactly the crucial point.

: I have found that certain styles are very hard to read and other styles
: are very easy.  You can bet I avoid the styles that are hard to read.
: Following up on what you said, I'd suggest a programmer who finds the
: standard style where they work to be hard to read to polish their resume.

: But I've also found programmers who find my style hard to read, and who
: use a style I find hard to read.  It's not just a matter of degree; it can
: be totally opposite.

I fully agree with you.

We take the indendation, as an example, which can be easily enforced
by machine:
With growing experience, a softworker will tend to accept indentation
and use it on his own because long-term experience indicates 
that this is indeed very practical.
Look at this piece of code

	    for i in field'range loop
	       field(i) := value;
	    end loop;

Why should I seriously hinder a programer
(by means of some stupid preprocessor) to choose a
possibly clearer sequence of statements like

	    for      i in field'range loop
	       field(i) := value;
	    end loop;

As I said before, I actively hate imposing extra rules to the
human programmer. This can be left to the C/C++-hackers
which dearly need extra rules to survive.

--
Peter Hermann  Tel:+49-711-685-3611 Fax:3758 ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)