[SLL] enforced white space

[Chuck Wolber]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Paul A. Franz, P.E. wrote:

> There are some odd white space issues in BASH too.

And the Makefile format (if you consider tabs vs. space a white space 
issue)...


> Would you elaborate on why you find enforced white space objectionable? 

Do you mean enforced formatting?


* Do one thing and one thing only. The runtime should only care about 
running my code, not how I formatted it (yes, I understand the difference 
between runtime, parser and tokenizer).

* Code formatting does not solve a problem that good developers have. It 
is usually not a good idea to solve problems that do not exist. 

* Corollary: You cannot dress up a pig and expect it to not act like a 
pig. Bad developers will write bad code no matter how it is formatted.

* Enforced formatting has always struck me as a way to lighten the load of 
writing a parser at the expense of the developer.

* Some developers *LIKE* writing code. Enforcing formatting mechanizes the 
process a bit too much for me. Although I hasten to add that I am a very 
big believer in coding standards, but those are a project/group things, 
not a universal dogma.


> Isn't this a sort of syntax only issue?

Yup, 100% syntax. 


..Ch:W..


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