allowing braces around suites

[Antoon Pardon]

Op 2004-08-28, Isaac To schreef <iketo2 at netscape.net>:
>>>>>> "Kjetil" == Kjetil Torgrim Homme <kjetilho at yksi.ifi.uio.no> writes:
>
>    Kjetil> I find this attitude a little defensive.  Python has much
>    Kjetil> more to offer than just strict indentation.  although it's
>    Kjetil> probably the feature you notice first, it's not enough to
>    Kjetil> make Python a superior language.
>
> For me, it is *the* feature that make it stands out from the scripting
> crowd.  There are other things nice in Python, but as long as there is
> one big enough killing feature, people will use the language enough to
> add others.
>
>    Kjetil> after all, code in _any_ language written by a
>    Kjetil> professional will have strict indentation.  so it's just
>    Kjetil> syntax.
>
> No.  In all other languages, people deal with *two* ways to find which
> statement is associated with an if/while/for/whatever statement and
> which is not: by looking at the indentation, and by looking at the
> braces.  They normally look at the indentation, since it is the
> quicker way.  But when they find something wrong, they look at the
> defining braces, sometimes deeply hidden in long expressions and
> statements combined into one line.  In Python, we have *one and only
> one* way to find which statement is associated with an
> if/while/for/whatever statement, and this is the quicker way that
> people are used to.

I doubt that.

I used to limit myself to indentation to see which code belonged
to which control. But then I found myself witch controls that
were so nested it was hard to see to which if a particular
else suite belonged and I started to use end markers in comments
to make the structure more visible.

> This single feature reduces the amount of bugs
> that you would introduce when editing and modifying code.

Yes it does, but so does a language that enforces endmarkers.

> More
> importantly, this single feature allows you to be much less stressed
> when editing code.

IME the use of end markers helps too.

-- 
Antoon Pardon