use Perl

• What is this reality you speak of? (Score:1)

  by Aristotle (5147)

  Tab users like to tout that it allows you to use whatever indentation level you like when in reality you just wind up with mixed up tabs and spaces.

  I’ve been programming with tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment for the better part of a decade.

  I’ve never had a single problem keeping things straight in my own code.
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by schwern (1528)

    I've never had a single problem keeping things straight in my own code.

    Its your code and your style, of course it makes sense to you! You could write in rot13'd Swahili and it would still make sense, but only to you.

    Here is the best advice I can give about writing maintainable code: It's not about you. It's about everyone else. Each personal style quirk that others have to puzzle out or adjust to or in any way hampers and frustrates their ability to quickly skim and patch your code loses you patches. T
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Aristotle (5147)

      You could write in rot13’d Swahili and it would still make sense

      Oh please. Your argument might hold water if you weren’t talking to someone who is about 17× more obsessed with clarity than the average programmer – and has gotten the compliments to prove that it makes sense to others. (I hate boasting, but for the sake of this argument I need to point out the evidence that it’s not just in my head.)

      It’s not about you. It’s about everyone else.

      When in Rome, I do as t
      • Re: (Score:2)

        by schwern (1528)

        Oh please. Your argument might hold water if you weren’t talking to someone who is about 17× more obsessed with clarity than the average programmer – and has gotten the compliments to prove that it makes sense to others. (I hate boasting, but for the sake of this argument I need to point out the evidence that it’s not just in my head.)

        Don't get so excited, I do silly things too.

        Unfortunately, this is an ad hominem argument essentially sayi
        • Re:What is this reality you speak of? (Score:1)

          by Aristotle (5147) <pagaltzis@gmx.de> on 2009.02.23 1:00 (#67560) Homepage Journal

          If N projects each have their own style each contributor must learn N styles.

          Ah, the Python school of thought. I like Perl better.

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          • Re: (Score:2)

            by schwern (1528)

            [Hmm, is invoking Python the Perl variation on Godwin's Law?]

            Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate
            to make 10 ways to do something. :-)
                            --Larry Wall in

            There is merit in the Python view on style. Like anything else, the key is knowing when to apply a rule and when not to. You don't want to over do it and pave the community flat. You don't want to under do it and wind up with style Balkanization. I think it's perfe