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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,997e6472f58cc955 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-06-06 17:53:00 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsfeed.news2me.com!small1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.gbronline.com!news.gbronline.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 19:52:59 -0500 Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 19:53:28 -0500 From: Wesley Groleau Reply-To: wesgroleau@despammed.com Organization: Ain't no organization here! User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.3.1) Gecko/20030425 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en, es-mx, pt-br, fr-ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Case dependence and coding standards References: <035odv8mfiksmqo69q0250qp141oebtdro@4ax.com> <5Uudnc0G7djTEEKjXTWcqQ@gbronline.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.117.18.117 X-Trace: sv3-vII1Ot8tt1QqI/uWmhZTjJVZw3phrq6EIFydqJJfVh/fwZvbdlJZlUQzyC32OKGR5fnxjFEQKDBIeTp!3mbT+QtsiohBTPkuUN1yA1wPcw/hghxsbz+TGbnrBL3u86pSvrhcTHo6WqOt13lRPIKYCGmx9p/H!pDE4cA== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gbronline.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@gbronline.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:38776 Date: 2003-06-06T19:53:28-05:00 List-Id: > : my intuition is influenced by the empirical studies I've read on > : readability and human factors, as well as by the numerous Well, the studies I've read are not right at hand (stashed away in boxes of paper) but I remember that one of the books was by Deborah J. Mayhew: Principles and guidelines in software user interface design And it did have plenty of citations. A little old, but lots of good info in it. However, one thing about the book bothered me: Inside both covers were figures with captions about how the figure illustrated this or that effective use of color for this or that purpose. Unfortunately, some idiot at the publishing house decided to save money by printing them all gray scale! In teaching and reading, it's hard to be specific, but things that are suitable for tables should _be_ in tables instead of prose. It's just easier to take in the concepts. This would be almost any sort of list or repetitive structure. An if statement is not repetitive, so nothing is gained by tabular structure. A case statement, or an if with multiple elsifs, or a list of declarations is basically a table. And tables are easier to read if they are really tables. I understand that source code is affected by other factors which can make tabular format impractical sometimes. At those times, a little thought can select the most readable format. But, now that I've soapboxed on that a while, let me freely admit that it's NOT the most important thing in maintainable code.