Regarding coding style

[sjdevnull at yahoo.com]

On Mar 8, 7:34 pm, Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-
cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:31:47 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
> > I'm also a bit baffled by people who put a comment at the top of every
> > file that tells you what the filename is.
>
> [snip rant]
>
> You've never printed out a source file on pieces of dead tree to read on
> the train on the way home, or in bed or the bath?
>
> Yes, some editors will print a header or footer showing the file name,
> but not all will, or are configured to do so.

The only times I can recall printing source were in college classes
where I was required to hand in a hardcopy with the assignment and
code samples for job interviews.  In the real world the code base
tends to be too huge to contemplate printing, especially when I'd then
be stuck without sane ways to navigate around (tags, search, oobr,
etc).  For instance, our project right now is around 350,000 lines of
python and about 300,000 of DTML/mako templates.  I expect the
availability of laptops since I really started working as a programmer
in the mid-1990s biases me a bit compared to earlier times.

Even in the early 1990s the moral equivalent of enscript (I think it
was a2ps) worked just fine for printing with filenames, line/page
numbers, and other niceties no matter what editor you used.  It seems
more reasonable to mandate using a sane print tool for the odd case
where someone wants to print things out than to mandate cluttering up
every file with the filename in a comment.