ANN: Dao Language v.0.9.6-beta is release!

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 08:15:14 +0000, Zeljko Vrba wrote:

> On 2005-12-08, Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> Making a mistake in indentation level is precisely analogous to leaving
>> out markers in other languages. If your editor is smart enough, and the
>>
> But look at the following example:
> 
> if a:
>   some_code1
> if b:
>   some_code2
> 
> If I accidentaly delete if b:, then some_code2 gets under the if a: which is
> not intended. With braces (or other delimiters):
> 
> if(a) {
>   some_code1;
> }
> if(b) {
>   some_code2;
> }
> 
> if I delete if(b) I get a syntax error about unmatched braces.

Not unless you also delete the opening brace on the same line, surely?

Okay, you've deleted the line and you get a syntax error. But not if you
accidentally deleted the previous brace as well, or if there was an
earlier unmatched brace somewhere earlier in your code.

We could play this game all day -- you find some error or typo where
redundant braces will save the day, and I'll find another error where they
won't. In the meantime, you're spending more time thinking about braces
plus indentation than I am thinking about just indentation.

And I bet that you've made more mistakes where you got the indentation
right but the braces wrong, even with a smart editor, than I've
accidentally deleted code in a way that the indentation levels just happen
to wrongly match up.


> IMO, the "right"
> way to handle braces in C is always to  include them, even when they are not
> technically obligatory. I code like that for a long time and it has saved me
> a lot of headache.

Sure, and that's good advice for C, but that's because C is labouring
under the disadvantage that indentation is not meaningful to the compiler,
but is meaningful to the human programmer.


-- 
Steven.