After using Python professional (and managing a team of developers) for a few years, whitespace is a great way to keep things readable as more people touch code.
Whitespace isn't the only way to do it, of course. Go's "gofmt" is a good example of a different way to enforce code layout. [1]
People that complain about whitespace haven't used Python much, it's a dead giveaway.
And yet, the benefits are enormous, I've probably skipped typing a hundred thousand redundant braces since then, and ended up with more readable code.
If this happens again it deserves its own blog post describing the situation carefully!
IDE's handle both scenarios. My IDE largely remembers how far in I should be indented and if I use a brace it closes it for me.
If I program in a plain text-editor like Notepad - I still don't mess up my indenting any more than I forget to close a brace or parenthesis. It's a silly argument formed from speculation and "but its possible!" rather than reality.
Quite the opposite. Whitespace for me is a godsend - all code is formatted the same way and I rarely if ever have to deal with whitespace related errors. In fact I don't even know what whitespace related errors are - you'd have to explain what you mean.
On the other hand, when programming in JavaScript I seem to spend all my time trying to work out issues related to brackets and code structure - very very annoying and silly - can't computers work brackets out, do we need to tell them what the code structure is?
Python: white space is a great way to keep things readable as more people touch the code.
Perl / PHP / etc: braced blocks is a great way to keep things readable if the formatting breaks.
Python: People can get lost in braces.
Perl et al: People can forget to tab.
Personally I prefer braces, but I've worked with whitespaces and verbose ALGOL-style blocks too. At the end of the day, all these arguments are just theoretical because most people manage just fine 99% of the time.
True. That said, my main point is that standardizing on how to layout code is very helpful, either through the compile or using a preprocessor (like gofmt) is helpful, and more languages should encourage it out of the box.
The problem is when individuals decide to go off piste and do their own thing. But then those same individuals could equally be likely to bypass gofmt when writing code (which is very easily done), or to ignore company policy about tab spaces et al when writing Python code.
That said, I've learned to love gofmt for the laziness it brings. Text editors that auto-close brackets and such like can often be more of an intrusion than an asset. Where as gofmt only jumps in after the document is saved and the syntax is parsed for errors. So sometimes I find myself just throwing code down knowing that gofmt will tidy it up for me as I go. Which I'd be the first to admit is a pretty bad habit to get into hehehe
I was just commenting on how non-intrusive gofmt is when compared to the other tools that alter code while your programming.
I appreciate you wanting to be specific about their intended purpose but, frankly, you're stating the obvious. Anyone who's spent more than 5 minutes inside an IDE (or even basic programming-geared text editor) will already be well versed on the subject. You don't need to be an IDE developer to understand this (and to be honest, what developer hasn't written their own programming environment at some point in their lives anyway? :p )
In any case, I was just making a light-hearted passing comment; hence the "hehehe" at the end of it. It didn't really add anything to my original post and certainly wasn't meant to picked apart in this level of detail.
The only problem with white space languages are multi line lambdas.