do people really complain about significant whitespace?

[infidel]

Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are "they" really that
stupid/petty? Are "they" really out there at all? "They" almost sound
like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that "we" have invented.
It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to
believe it's as common as we've come to believe.

[Slawomir Nowaczyk]

On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:01:51 -0700
Rob Wolfe <bl****@interia.plwrote:

# if x==1:
#
# the newline is inserted automatically when you type ":"? That's a
#>
#Exactly.

Really? The newline? I know it *indents* automatically. But it
definitely doesn't insert newline when I try it.

I even downloaded revision 4.63 and I really do not see any code for
doing that. py-electric-colon only seems to dedent code.

# functionality I would like to see, but it doesn't seem to work
# this way.
#>
#Here is fragment of my python-mode.el:

Please note that this comment doesn't say anything about automatically
inserting newlines, only about indenting (actually, dedenting) as
needed.

Anyway, this is probably becoming off-topic here.

--
Best wishes,
Slawomir Nowaczyk
( Sl***************@cs.lth.se )

Cursor: What you become when your computer crashes.

[Gerhard Fiedler]

On 2006-08-10 07:40:01, Stephen Kellett wrote:

To answer your first question: In C++/Ruby/Pascal you'd have something
like this

function()
{
loop1()
{
[...]
}
}

I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than
explicit.

Since in the above languages indentation is optional but you still use it
(and even may use a program that provides the correct indentation if the
coder didn't do it), what prevents you from adding optional end-markers in
Python? They are not required, but they are not forbidden either, very
similar to the indenting in the above languages. Something like this:

function()
loop1()
blah
blah

loop2()
blah

loop3()
blah
#end loop3()

blah3
#end loop2()
#end loop1()

otherloop()
blah
#end otherloop()
#end function()

Of course, few people will write like this, but it probably is easier to
write a Python code formatter that adds them than it is to write a C code
formatter that adds proper indentation and provides your preferred
placement of braces.

Gerhard

[Terry Reedy]

"Stephen Kellett" <sn***@objmedia.demon.co.ukwrote in message
news:AC**************@objmedia.demon.co.uk...

To answer your first question: In C++/Ruby/Pascal you'd have something
like this

function()
{
loop1()
{
blah
blah

loop2()
{
blah

loop3()
{
blah
}

blah
}
}

otherloop()
{
blah
}
}

and in Python that gets to

function()
loop1()
blah
blah

loop2()
blah

loop3()
blah

blah3

otherloop()
blah

Much nicer, IMHO ;-).

I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than
explicit. If its implicit you have to look for it. And if blah3 didn't
exist then both loop2 and loop3 would be ending implicitly.

So add one of those judicious, informative comments that some have written
about in this thread ;-)
# end loop2
where 'loop2' would typically be something like 'i loop'. If blah3 didn't
exist, you could add
# end loop3
*above* the end loop2 comment.

I personally found matching far-apart well-indented braces visually
something of a nuisance too, so I sometimes did much the same in C:
} /* end i loop */

This problem gets worse with longer functions and more indentation.

And devoting lines to braces, including those that are visually interfering
(such as those for loop3) expands blocks and makes it more likely that
blocks will span screens. This makes the problem worse.

I'm sure some people are thinking the above is elegant.

Yes, allowing programmers to add explict end-suite markers only where
needed is, to me, more elegant that forcing redundant begin-suite markers
and often unneeded end-markers.

Terry Jan Reedy

[Gerhard Fiedler]

On 2006-08-10 06:44:04, Stephen Kellett wrote:

Just found this on c.l.ruby. Seems kind of relevant.

http://www.americanscientist.org/tem.../assetid/51982

The Semicolon Wars

Good reading :) Thanks.

Gerhard

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Stephen Kellett wrote:

In message <11**********************@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups .com>, Carl
Banks <pa************@gmail.comwrites

>Stephen Kellett wrote:
I don't really understand how a closing brace helps here. Care to
explain why it helps you?

>(Deeply nested long functions are evil anyways. If you have such a

I didn't write deeply nested. I wrote multiple levels of indentation.
They are not the same thing (they can be, but they don't have to be). A
lot of code gets to 3 or 4 levels of indentation quite easily. I
wouldn't call that deeply nested, not by a long shot.

To answer your first question: In C++/Ruby/Pascal you'd have something
like this

function()
{
loop1()
{
blah
blah

loop2()
{
blah

loop3()
{
blah
}

blah
}
}

otherloop()
{
blah
}
}

and in Python that gets to

function()
loop1()
blah
blah

loop2()
blah

loop3()
blah

blah3

otherloop()
blah

I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than
explicit.

<nitpicking>
Well, one can argue that since Python grammar defines that a code block
ends with the first following non-blank line that one indentation level
less, it's perfectly explicit !-)
</nitpicking>

But practically speaking :

If its implicit you have to look for it.

Indeed. And yes, I agree that it's not that good wrt/ readability for
any complex or long block.

OTOH, nothing prevents you to add a "# end <block>" comment where
appropriate - FWIW, I used to do it in C after the closing brace for any
lengthy block (and code blocks tend to be longer in C than in Python).

[Georg Brandl]

Gerhard Fiedler wrote:

function()
loop1()
blah
blah

loop2()
blah

loop3()
blah
#end loop3()

blah3
#end loop2()
#end loop1()

otherloop()
blah
#end otherloop()
#end function()

Of course, few people will write like this, but it probably is easier to
write a Python code formatter that adds them than it is to write a C code
formatter that adds proper indentation and provides your preferred
placement of braces.

It's already there: Tools/scripts/pindent.py.

Georg

[Stephen Kellett]

In message <ma***************************************@python. org>,
Gerhard Fiedler <ge*****@gmail.comwrites

>http://www.americanscientist.org/tem.../assetid/51982

The Semicolon Wars

Good reading :) Thanks.

Found something else relevant to this thread. The Pliant language.
Appears to use whitespace indentation for grouping.

http://fullpliant.org/pliant/languag...lt_syntax.html

Stephen
--
Stephen Kellett
Object Media Limited http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html
Computer Consultancy, Software Development
Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting