Yes it is easily fixed but this is a lack of attention to detail in a fundamental area. I would imagine that many, many people have seen that code at some point and yet have not bothered to fix up a glaringly obvious formatting error. That may say more about people than the quality of the code but it looks awful to an outsider (like me).

That chunk of code is one of the fundamental building blocks of C++. When presented as exhibit A it should look good. To an outsider that sort of thing looks bad, even if the presented thing is correct the silly error will be obsessed over - as here.

If something is important enough, and I think that C++ is one of those, then for $DEITYS sake fix the obvious stuff before having to be an apologist for it. A simple sed script run decades ago would have done that.

The reason I am labouring this point is that one day it wont be a discussion on HN debating this sort of bollocks but something involving lots of dosh. If S&M ever realised what source code really looked like - they'd have a fit. The world turns ...