Indentation/whitespace

[Gary Herron]

Joe wrote:

>Is Python going to support s syntax the does not use it's infamous
>whitespace rules? I recall reading that Python might include such a
>feature. Or, maybe just a brace-to-indentation preprocessor would be
>sufficient.
>  
>
Only over our dead bodies! ("our" = the large and 
always growing Python
community.)

>Many people think Python's syntax makes sense. There are strong
>feelings both ways. It must depend on a person's way of thinking,
>because I find it very confusing, even after using with Python for some
>time, and trying to believe the advice that I would learn to like it.
>The most annoying thing is that multiple dedents are very unreadable. I
>still don't understand how anybody can think significant-but-invisible
>dedentation is a good thing.
>  
>
You've got the visible/invisible aspect of things 
*exactly* backwards.
The point on a line of text where things change 
from white space to
non-white space is *highly* visible. The several 
pixels that represent a
{ or } are nearly invisible within a line of text. 
(So one usually
compensates by putting them alone on a line, 
making them somewhat more
visible.)

Try this experiment: Print out a page of C++ code, 
tape it to the wall,
and start walking backwards. You will still be 
able to discern the
structure of the code *long* after you can no 
longer identify the
curly-braces. (Provided you properly indented you 
C++ code -- you *do*
indent you C++ code don't you?)

Gary Herron

>Note: No need to follow up with long opinions of why indentation is
>good -- they have been posted hundreds of times. It just seems that
>Python developers think the whitespace thing is only an issue for
>newbies. I think that many experienced users don't learn to like it,
>but instead just learn to live with it.
>
>  
>