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=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,259541b8a8a12b6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-12-20 20:18:02 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!freenix!proxad.net!teaser.fr!enst!enst.fr!not-for-mail From: "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: RE: Bad coding standards - aesthetics are irrelevant Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 20:12:53 -0800 Organization: ENST, France Sender: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org Message-ID: Reply-To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: marvin.enst.fr Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: avanie.enst.fr 977372232 56803 137.194.161.2 (21 Dec 2000 04:17:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@enst.fr NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 04:17:12 +0000 (UTC) To: Return-Path: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 In-Reply-To: Importance: Normal Errors-To: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0beta5 Precedence: bulk List-Id: comp.lang.ada mail<->news gateway Errors-To: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:3307 Date: 2000-12-20T20:12:53-08:00 From: Bob Leif To: Singlespeeder et al. A direct way to enforce an institutional style would be to build automated tools that reformat the Ada source to beautiful Ada source. For instance, if an XML schema were created for Ada, it appears to me that it would be possible to create an ASIS based tool to produce Ada source in XML syntax. It should then be possible, if need be, to enhance an XML editor to serve as an Ada programming editor. Since the formatting of XML is separate from the XML document, it should be possible to create an institutional style sheet. This technology could be augmented by other ASIS tools which, for instance, could selectively eliminate Use Package statements and instead perform renames according to a standard algorithm. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Singlespeeder Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 2:23 PM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: Bad coding standards - aesthetics are irrelevant Much of the debate on aesthetics would be needless if there was a good freely available non-proprietary tool for reformatting the code, much like the C world has 'indent'. Then all you do is specify a company wide set of flags for the tool and insist that all code is run through the tool with those flags before checking it into the code libraries. This is not a new idea - check out 'Code Complete' by Steve McConnell for more debate on layout backed up by hard figures. Unfortunately bad coding style is more than mere aesthetics. As for markers in the code - surely the language standard itself need not specify them. Neither is there any reason why you or your company couldn't adopt html (or even xml) in your source code comments and then run the source through a tool similar to javadoc. Except you'd have to write the tool. None proprietary please. Nick Wallis