On Nov 4, 2006, at 8:48 PM, Dave Smith wrote:
For me, readability has more to do with consistency than white
space usage or brace placement.
-snip-
I don't think either style is more or less readable, inherently,
but my mind has been trained to read the former, so I process it
more quickly.
Okay, I'll buy that you've trained yourself to read your way more
quickly, so it's easier for you to parse what you see. However, I
gave a reason why a format that makes code more vertically compact
would be objectively more readable, and you didn't really refute that.
Do you never need the context of what lies above and below your
visible window into your code? Maybe your memory is better than mine.
I used to optimize my code layout for vertical compactness, but I
don't feel it has made any difference for the readability of my
code *to me*. There are many better ways to make code readable than
white space, I've found, and they all have more to do with well
thought-out logic and good design.
Certainly there are other things more important to understandability
than whether you put your braces on their own lines or not. But that
does not change the fact that you get way less on your screen when
you litter it with semantically meaningless lines. Better to combine
good logic and design with good formatting, too.
So, if you used to use a more compact style, I assume you were used
to it and you could parse it quickly. Why did you switch?
--Levi
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