Re:Controversial Programming Opinions (2012)
by recursive on Saturday December 05, 2020 @05:56PM
(#25319242)
I do use spaces to indent code. And I still have no idea what my fundamental misunderstanding is supposed to be.
Re:Controversial Programming Opinions (2012)
by rhn_mk1 on Sunday December 06, 2020 @11:59AM
(#25324730)
My take on it is that (most) code isn't a picture, so drawing with it (alignment especially) is missing the point that code is a form of text instructions.
If anything, the editor should "render" the text in a form that is pleasant to the eye, divorcing the meaning from the presentation.
Lining up things too much is a "works for me" way of baking presentation into the data, where the writer assumes that because it looks good o their setup, it will look well for the reader too.
Similarities can be seen to building web pages on tables, sending around Word documents, or hard-wrapping emails.
> If you use spaces to indent code, or in any way rely on a fixed width font to "line things up", you have a fundamental misunderstanding.
As long as the limitations of lining things up "exactly" are avoided, spaces shouldn't be any different than whatever way comes from true understanding.