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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Really, are we going to argue about the One True Formatting style?

A 2 space indent is more compact. A 4 space indent is more readable for older people. Putting braces around blocks on their own lines highlights blocks. Putting braces inline is again more compact. Outdenting declarations highlights an important piece of information. Keeping them in line focuses on blocks. And so on.

None of these choices are particularly important. Being CONSISTENT does. This is his site, and his code. Adapt. If he comes to work with you, then he'll need to adapt to you.

Yes, it is a shock to see someone whose style is unfamiliar to you. Each of your choices has a reason behind it, and you may have thought through all of them. But it matters less than you think. Grow up and get over it. Be consistent with code around you.

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> A 2 space indent... A 4 space indent...

I have been wondering for a while now why is it that everybody is stuck with this typewriter/punchcard mentality and assumes that only a fixed-width (non-proportional) font could be used to display program code on a computer screen. Would it not be more appropriate, in this century, to realize that since indentation (and spacing in general) is essentially something that only pertains to the graphical representation of program's code, it should be left to the editor/viewer software (and its user) to set, given a single tab or space character, the number of pixels (or inches or any other unit of length) that should be used to represent the indentation or white space? This should have nothing to do with the width of a character, and therefore using modern proportional fonts should be just as convenient and natural as it is when using a word processor.

>> Would it not be more appropriate, in this century, to realize that since indentation (and spacing in general) is essentially something that only pertains to the graphical representation of program's code...

False assumption.

Suppose a language exists which: 1.) truncates all characters beyond the 80th prior to interpretation; 2.) will throw an exception during run-time if tab characters are used for indentation; 3.) strictly defines, in BNF, valid cases for the first 7 column-wise characters, of which 7 spaces is distinctly meaningful.

Although it may be "this century", I think I speak for more than a few who continue to maintain the corrected mistakes of our predecessors out of economic necessity...and I'm not talking about reaping a paycheck either.

>None of these choices are particularly important. Being CONSISTENT does.

The thing is - there isn't much consistency in his syntax. The most obvious example is the indentation, that appears to be 8 spaces except for one line which is indented with 4; there isn't consistency in whether to have a space or not before semicolons, before and after parentheses, or before and after binary operators.

> Be consistent with code around you

I sometimes forget what i did in last function, so in my code there might be inconsistencies and a mix of both styles found. I hope to get consistent some day but a working code is the priority right now :)

In a code base there ideally should be a single coding standard. Achieving this ideal always seems impossible. But various languages have various tools to enable mass reformatting to fix this if there is no current consistency. This turns the problem from being a technical one to a social one.

Good luck with reaching agreement with your fellow developers...

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