Introducing Cobra

[Gabriel Sechan]

----------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:20:37 -0800
> From: kplug at davidb.org
> To: kplug-lpsg at kernel-panic.org
> Subject: Re: Introducing Cobra
> 
> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 05:12:32PM -0600, Gabriel Sechan wrote:
> 
>>While you can put a brace in the wrong spot as a bug, you can do the same
>>with whitespace.  You'll never get that type of error from just moving
>>code around.  THis is absolutely a reason why indent based blocking is a
>>bad thing.  
> 
> I guess I don't understand.  When moving blocks of code around, I _often_
> have to fix up braces and such to make the structure of the code correct.
> Generally, I have to fix both the braces and the indentation to get what I
> want, and it is usually the indentation that tells me when things are
> wrong.

SInce I almost always move a block (or multipel blocks) at a time, I have to change the indentation on the line with the brace, but not add/delete braces themselves.  I just copy them with the rest of the code.  I rarely start at one level of nesting and end at another, which would require fixing braces.

> 
> The times I've been bitten where were the indentation was correct, but the
> braces didn't get copied with the right part of the block.  It was only the
> syntax error hundreds of lines later that pointed out the problem.
> 
> With indentation as the nesting itself, I only have to fix one of these,
> and that's the one that is blatantly obvious.

Except that is isn't:

if foo()
  bar()
baz()

How far should baz be indented?  It can be difficult to remember, especially if you were distracted and came back to it.  WIth braces, you always know.

Note:  this ignores the fact some languages allow you to not brace off 1 liners.  I agree that was a mistake, and its a side issue to the discussion here.

> 
> Please don't tell me you would even consider using the code with the
> indentation wrong.
> 
I would for a quickie bench test, but I'd fix it before submitting.


>>Indent based blocking is an attempt at solving a social problem (people
>>who don't indent, although I've never actually met one of these people)
>>with a technical solution (indentation as semanticly meaningful).  That
>>just doesn't work-  you're causing at least as many problems as you're
>>stopping (probably far more, because I've never met a programmer who
>>didn't indent predictably) and adding in whole new classes of bugs.  The
>>correct answer is to educate the people who don't indent.
> 
> Where did you get the idea that indentation based blocking is trying to
> solve this problem?  It was created for people who were indenting so that
> they only had to specify the nesting in one way.  It certainly isn't
> primarily motivated as a way to force people to indent.
> 

Because I can't think of any other problem it could possibly be attempting to solve.  I only see problems it causes.   Also, I've heard this line of logic used before by python users.

>>You're right, I meant to type auto-shift.  Same issue though-  if your
>>language requires an editor to have a specific tool to avoid a common bug,
>>your language is fatally flawed.  Python isn't even a remote consideration
>>for me due to this.  I've actually rewritten small (
> 
> The language doesn't require anything more out of my editor than another
> laugnage does.  I need my editor to be able to match braces to be able to
> do sane rearrangement of code in C, and I need it to be able to change
> indentation for Python.  Actually, I would argue that the indentation
> change is much easier to do manually than trying to match braces visually.
> 
Not at all-  since 99% of the time you move braces in pairs, you just don't have to worry about it.  It will just work.

> Again, this seems to be more of an argument in favor of Python, rather than
> against.
> 
If you think that, we're coming at this from such disparate opinions we can't understand each other, because I'm utterly and completely at a loss for any way of thinking that.

Gabe
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