Hacker News Reader

Comment by sullyj3 | Hacker News Reader

The benefit of significant whitespace is that you can't write code like this:

  int foo() {
         a();
    b(); 
          c();
  if (test())
    doSomethingIfTest();
    doSomethingUnconditionally();}

View on HN

    def foo():
        a()
        b() 
        c()
      if test():
        doSomethingIfTest()
      doSomethingUnconditionally()

You can still write this, which is equally garbage because a, b, and c mean nothing to me. I know you're just showing a code example, but my point is that unprofessional idiots will always write shit code, the language won't protect them from themselves.

Your issue can be fixed with a linter, mine can't.

Look at this python code: https://github.com/django/django/blob/master/django/core/mai...

In my opinion, it's rather difficult to tell where one if/else block ends, and the next begins. At a glance, I couldn't even tell you how many if/else statements there are. In my opinion, braces give me a frame of reference for my eyes to lock into, even in my periphery, and give me a far better understanding of the code structure.

Most modern editors will actively make it difficult to do this, and some even do format-on-save to fix it across the board.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com