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From: Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Problems with 'class, help anyone?
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 15:00:14 +0000 (UTC)
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Pascal Obry <p.obry@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
: Well, as Stephen, I think "in" should always be there. This is also part of my
: style guide. With a nice formatting it reads very well:

No,	with	nice	formatting	it	is	easy	to
use	the	procedure	specification	as	a	lookup
table.		It	is	never	easy	to	read	text
that	is	presented	in	tabular	layout.	Lots	of
effort	have	gone	into	formatting	algorithms	that
"minimize"	space	between	words.		The	reason	is
related to	exhausting	eye	movements	when	reading.
Reading	as	opposed	to,	for	example,	browsing
an	index.

:   procedure Call
:     (P1 : in     Integer;
:      P2 : in out Integer;
:      P4 :    out Integer;
:      P3 : access Integer);

Whether this layout is helpful may depend on context.
A possible thought when "reading" Call's specification for the first time:
 ah, there is a P1, an "in" parameter of type Integer, which 
 is just read.  Then comes P2, which is inout and also an Integer.
 And what else does this procedure need? Hm, P4, another Integer, and
 this is a result parameter...
another thought, later:
 I do remember the types and such of the parameters of Call, but what has
 been the name of that out parameter? Lets see, ah, yes, P4 is the one
 I want.

In the second case (looking at something "I already know"), tabular
layout helps (me). In the first case, when reading _from left to right_,
it doesn't help (me) at all.

-- georg