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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Code Formatters
Date: 1996/11/06
Message-ID: <dewar.847331328@merv>#1/1
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references: <552nkb$u1k@gcsin3.geccs.gecm.com> <327A17CA.6B30@gsfc.nasa.gov>
 	<dewar.847124036@merv> <OHK.96Nov5091944@edeber.tfdt-o.nta.no>
 <dewar.847201701@merv> <1996Nov5.144945.1@eisner> <dewar.847250374@merv>
 <55q621$v6s@gcsin3.geccs.gecm.com>
organization: New York University
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-11-06T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Dave Smith says

"Or maybe it would have been useful to have included the Ada
Style Guide (the "bible" as far as I am concerned) as part of
the ANSI standard. Them we would all have code that conformed to
the same layout."

Dubious -- first, you could never have got agreement on a specific set
of rules. Second, and perhaps more important, a good set of style
guidelines is just that, a set of guidelines, not absoulute rules,
and many of them are occasionally broken for good reasons.

For example, in the GNAT world, we enforce the -gnatf set of
rules, oops, I mean -gnatg, with the compiler considering violations
to be errors (for details, have a look at style.adb i the GNAT sources).

But the GNAT style involves MANY other rules that are not enforced
mechanically (they are mostly enforced by self discipline, and then
I check all checkins to make sure they meet the style rules, early
on I used to find many deviations, now everyone really knows the rules
and there is rarely need for correction, but that does not mean that
these style reuls are oebyed 100%