Hacker News Reader

Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

Huh? My emacs auto-indents both styles in exactly the same way:

    void foo() {
      code...;
    }
    
    void foo()
    {
      code...;
    }

View on HN

The start of the code block is signified by the opening brace, which starts at the end of the method name in the first case, hence breaking symmetry.

To my eye, the start of the code block is signified by the indentation, i.e.:

    stuffstuffstuff....
      stuffstuffstuff...

So I read C and Python (and Lisp) code the same way. A naked open brace looks jarring and ugly to me. It also increases the separation of other related parts of the code, i.e.

    if (...) {
      while(...) {
        do(...) {

    if (...)
    {
      while(...) {
      {
        do(...) {

The latter seems unnecessarily wasteful to me.

K&R isn't that terrible when code is neat and clean, but it starts to have trouble IMO particularly when declarations or conditions wrap to multiple lines. Compare the following examples... I personally have to stop and read the code to find the blocks with K&R braces, vs being able to see them at a glance with Allman.

    void MyLongMethodName(SomeLongParamType param1, SomeOtherLongParamType param2,
        YetAnotherLongParamType param3) {
        if (longContrivedVariableName1 == longContrivedVariableName2 && 
            longContrivedVariableName1 != longContrivedVariableName3) {
            // do stuff
        }
    }
    
    void MyLongMethodName(SomeLongParamType param1, SomeOtherLongParamType param2,
        YetAnotherLongParamType param3) 
    {
        if (longContrivedVariableName1 == longContrivedVariableName2 && 
            longContrivedVariableName1 != longContrivedVariableName3) 
        {
            // do stuff
        }
    }

Emacs autoindent to the rescue:

    void MyLongMethodName(SomeLongParamType param1, SomeOtherLongParamType param2,
                          YetAnotherLongParamType param3) {
      if (longContrivedVariableName1 == longContrivedVariableName2 &&
          longContrivedVariableName1 != longContrivedVariableName3) {
        // do stuff
      }
    }

IME the more complex your code formatting, the less likely people are to do it, especially after your code has been touched by dozens of different people with a dozen different editors.

This is why emacs is the One True Editor ;-)

I treat the parentheses the same way I treat the braces:

    void MyLongMethodName(
        SomeLongParamType param1,
        SomeOtherLongParamType param2,
        YetAnotherLongParamType param3
    ) {
        if (
            longContrivedVariableName1 == longContrivedVariableName2 &&
            longContrivedVariableName1 != longContrivedVariableName3
        ) {
            // do stuff
        }
    }

I also make liberal use of temporary variables:

    void MyLongMethodName(
        SomeLongParamType param1,
        SomeOtherLongParamType param2,
        YetAnotherLongParamType param3
    ) {
        auto condition1 = longContrivedVariableName1 == longContrivedVariableName2;
        auto condition2 = longContrivedVariableName1 != longContrivedVariableName3;
        if (condition1 && condition2) {
            // do stuff
        }
    }

Vertical space is allocated to the actual parameters and conditions, and the extra syntax-only lines exist only to separate chunks. This works well with "paragraphs":

    void MyLongMethodName(
        SomeLongParamType param1,
        SomeOtherLongParamType param2,
        YetAnotherLongParamType param3
    ) {
        auto condition1 = longContrivedVariableName1 == longContrivedVariableName2;
        auto condition2 = longContrivedVariableName1 != longContrivedVariableName3;
        if (condition1 && condition2) {
            // do stuff
        }

        auto someData = buildSomeData();
        doSomethingWith(someData);
        while (someCondition) {
            // loop
        }

        finishUp();
        return someData;
    }

Great for you. I guess you never have to share your code with other people; especially those who aren't using emacs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com