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Comment by icey | Hacker News Reader

  how (
      is {
           this();
          }
      any();
      better(
               than[$parenthesis]
             );
      );

?

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Why do people use full tabs and put the braces at the indentation level of the opening statement? I have discovered the one true coding style: 2 spaces indent, opening character immediately after opening statement, closing character on new line indented with preceding code block

    how (
      is {
        this();
        }
      any();
      better(
        than[$parenthesis]
        );
      );

A 2 space indent loses at 'visual overview' of larger (and more representative) expanses of code. A 4 space indent maintains clarity at the level of a skim or casual glance, even if it "fails" at the contrived (but simple) example shown here.

Supporting "larger" expanses of code is a pathological feature, not a benefit. If the code doesn't break back to the baseline after more than half a page, there's something wrong with that code in 99.9% of the cases.

Though true, a 2 space indent visually 'breaks' whenever there's (conservatively speaking) more than 8 lines of code on a single level followed by several further indented lines. After that, the indentation level of the immediately following less indented lines is not available to the average skimmer.

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