Pet Peeve
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Too much whitespace/not enough whitespace. The "Great Debate" goes on. Some programmers get paid by LOC, so they're induced to spread things out. Some programmers like to show how smart they are, so they try to condense everything to one line of cryptic functions. Other programmers heard "this" is the right way to do it. For me, the key is "consistency". I want my code and all my programmers' code to look identical. It should be totally transparent who wrote the code. And the code needs to be clear, quickly comprehensible and understandable, yet concise. I don't want to spend my time figuring out what John Doe was doing and maybe miss some key element when I'm under pressure to fix a problem or develop a new capability. I tell my programmers that "I was around long before you came and I will be around long after you leave. Do it my way because I will have to maintain it later." I just had to work on a one-liner script from another company that incorporated at least 12 function calls. Took me the better part of a week to figure out where the bug was. Yes it looked slick, but a week wasted is two weeks lost. That's my thoughts--clear, comprehensible, concise.
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I agree with you. And I am actually the kind of person that when has to modify something like:
if (something)
{
DoA();
DoB();
}To only call a DoAB(), I will go there and kill the extra { and }. So, I have more work doing that, but I keep consistency. So, it becomes:
if (something)
DoAB(); -
but that's the start of the problem! someday, someone is going to have to come along and add some more logic in that if, and you've just forced them to do the work you should've done the first time! IMO
Correct. If you have a 'rule' which says, "(don't) use braces, except in these special cases", then you have to remember the special cases. I'm in the braces-good camp for the reasons Chris supplied above. Missing them doesn't make your code noticeably more concise, and does make your code (and, more importantly, your intentions, when you've run away from this project and I'm trying to figure it out [or vice-versa]) noticeably more readable.
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The rule that I have is that you omit the braces iff the statement is a simple single line. Also, if either branch needs braces then both get them, and loops always have braces.
Curvature of the Mind now with 3D
You beat me to it man. If it's hard to read then I use them. For simple things concise wins. +5
Jeremy Falcon
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Ok, you have a good point with that, but it's still not worth the trade off of having really extra long files / routines. Besides, it gives you something to spot the new guys with so you can give them a hard time.
Jeremy Falcon
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It's 2014, who cares how long the code file is. It's easier to read with the extra {}, it's easier to maintain with the extra {}. The only downside is typing extra {}. Don't you get paid per line anyway??
I care. Being able to see more at a glance is nice. It's also less convoluted when it's a simple statement. And I don't get paid per line, nobody does. I get paid to deliver a product that's useful. Nobody cares about line count except other nerds / devs.
Jeremy Falcon
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Karel Čapek wrote:
Why are people so lazy?
Did it occur to you that it may be about style and not laziness? Some people can have even another style:
if (condition) DoThis();
else DoThat();To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
Fabio Franco wrote:
Did it occur to you that it may be about style and not laziness?
No: people who do this tend to shortcut other things (sweeping generalization and/or observation over many years of being a coder) or crush the code into as small a space as possible making it hard to read. The point is really to have consistency of style and format in the code: braces make it easier to read. Consider this:
int a = 0;
string bean = "green";
float golden= 1.618;
if (condition)
{
x = 42;
bean = "eatme";
golden = a * pi;
}
else
a = 1;
bean = 'foo';
golden = a - x;I find that style difficult to read and adding the braces would make it much easier to see the flow. Oh, and then there are tabs v spaces... :-)
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I don't do if() and the code in the same line. It is more a debug stuff. If I want to debug the if itself I put the breakpoint in that line. If I only want to debug the method call, after the if succeeded, I put the breakpoint in the call line.
Here's a Visual Studio trick: To debug the if, make sure the text cursor is somewhere in the if condition and press F9. To debug the method call after the if succeeded, make sure the text cursor is somewhere in the method call and press F9. Happy Debugging :)
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That works fine until you get this in the code after all :)
if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &serverRandom)) != 0) goto fail; if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0) goto fail; goto fail; if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0) goto fail;When I first saw that bug I got even more convinced see that my approach to braces everywhere as a must works better in the end.
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. T.Jefferson
I, for example, would never write the code like that. I can write an if without the {}, but I always put an extra line break after the call. And seeing two lines after the if simply looks wrong.
if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &serverRandom)) != 0)
goto fail;if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0)
goto fail;
goto fail; // why the hell there's a line of code here? It is not important what it does, it looks wrong.if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0)
goto fail;So, this kind of error is as ugly to me as this (in fact, even uglier as the excessive {} somewhat hide the problem):
if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &serverRandom)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
}if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
}
goto fail; // Doesn't this look wrong?if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
}But developers can also commit these errors (and by simply taking a looks without reading the code, I don't spot anything wrong):
if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &serverRandom)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
}if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
} // Oh, it looks like an else is missing...
{
goto fail;
}if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
}// So the code gets corrected to...
if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &serverRandom)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
}if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
}
else
{
goto fail;
}if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0)
{
goto fail;
} -
Why are people so lazy? For example, how hard is it to
if (condition)
{
DoThis();
}
else
{
DoThat();
}as opposed to:
if (condition)
DoThis();
else
DoThat();Pedants :sigh:
I personally prefer the former of the two, for readability. I tend to "speed read" classes and utilize the curly brackets as logical breaks in the code. Basically, for me, it differentiates between code indentations and logic (if, foreach, for, etc.)
ICP-Fan (The Keyboard Wielding Maniac)
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Here's a Visual Studio trick: To debug the if, make sure the text cursor is somewhere in the if condition and press F9. To debug the method call after the if succeeded, make sure the text cursor is somewhere in the method call and press F9. Happy Debugging :)
Imagine the if and the call are in the same line. Yet, the condition is false 99% of the time. Also, the method being called is called from many other places. If things are in two lines, simply put the breakpoint inside the if, not on the if line. If it is in the same line, you can't do that. Putting the breakpoint inside the method call will not help either, as it is called from many other places, so the best you can do is to create a conditional breakpoint. I prefer to have things in two lines and put the breakpoint exactly where it is needed.
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I prefer
if (something) DoAB();
for the latter. I never use it, but have recently come across it. It seems more readable to me.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. - Oscar Wilde
Brady Kelly wrote:
I prefer
if (something) DoAB();
for the latter. I never use it, but have recently come across it. It seems more readable to me.
Me too, if you must omit the braces then it's best to put it on one line. That way you don't have to worry about someone coming along later, not paying attention, and doing this:
if (something)
DoA();
DoB(); -
I agree with you. And I am actually the kind of person that when has to modify something like:
if (something)
{
DoA();
DoB();
}To only call a DoAB(), I will go there and kill the extra { and }. So, I have more work doing that, but I keep consistency. So, it becomes:
if (something)
DoAB();Paulo Zemek wrote:
I agree with you. And I am actually the kind of person that when has to modify something like:
if (something)
{
DoA();
DoB();
}To only call a DoAB(), I will go there and kill the extra { and }. So, I have more work doing that, but I keep consistency.
So, it becomes:if (something)
DoAB();Are you serious? You re-factor and combine methods just so you can avoid braces and use a dangerous bad practice?
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Paulo Zemek wrote:
I agree with you. And I am actually the kind of person that when has to modify something like:
if (something)
{
DoA();
DoB();
}To only call a DoAB(), I will go there and kill the extra { and }. So, I have more work doing that, but I keep consistency.
So, it becomes:if (something)
DoAB();Are you serious? You re-factor and combine methods just so you can avoid braces and use a dangerous bad practice?
No, I don't refactor and combine methods... I was only giving an example. What's more probably is that I extract an entire block (with many calls) into a single method. But for the example I used two calls.
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:thumbsup: Quite. The maturity of a programming language may (in part) be calculated by how many newlines are required. A proper language requires none.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Quite. The maturity of a programming language may (in part) be calculated by how many newlines are required. A proper language requires none.
Just for making that statement, you should be forced to a maintain decade-old Perl CGI system.
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Ok, you have a good point with that, but it's still not worth the trade off of having really extra long files / routines. Besides, it gives you something to spot the new guys with so you can give them a hard time.
Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Ok, you have a good point with that, but it's still not worth the trade off of having really extra long files / routines. Besides, it gives you something to spot the new guys with so you can give them a hard time.
Who cares how long the files are? They aren't being printed on paper (hopefully), and scrolling is not so hard. Setting a trap for junior programmers that introduces a bug is not responsible programming. If you do that, you are responsible for the bug, not the newbie, and you should be "given a hard time" for compromising the code base just to be a jerk.
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I'm not lazy, but I'll still use the latter. There's no point in always having to use a bracket so I don't, unless it makes things easier to read. Which in your example it doesn't. Wasting space just makes a source code file longer anyway and harder to navigate. Concise wins, unless it's hard to read.
Jeremy Falcon
I both agree and disagree. My personal coding style is:
if (expr) {
doSomething();
}
else {
doAnotherThing();
}I like using the braces so that adding an extra bit of logic to the execution block won't inadvertently change the program flow, and at the same time placing the opening brace on the same line as the if... and the else statements compacts the code a bit. To me the advantage with compact code is that you can see more of the program logic in a single screen which means less time scrolling up and down trying to follow the program logic. For that reason, I'm ruthless in eliminating blank line whitespace except to visually offset functions or methods.
Ron Christie
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Ok, you have a good point with that, but it's still not worth the trade off of having really extra long files / routines. Besides, it gives you something to spot the new guys with so you can give them a hard time.
Who cares how long the files are? They aren't being printed on paper (hopefully), and scrolling is not so hard. Setting a trap for junior programmers that introduces a bug is not responsible programming. If you do that, you are responsible for the bug, not the newbie, and you should be "given a hard time" for compromising the code base just to be a jerk.
The trap isn't that hard to spot though. Seriously man, we're not talking about something difficult. It's just a peeve. We can debate, but that's all it is. Just a peeve. And my preference is that I'd rather see more of the file, because it's not that hard to spot.
Jeremy Falcon
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I both agree and disagree. My personal coding style is:
if (expr) {
doSomething();
}
else {
doAnotherThing();
}I like using the braces so that adding an extra bit of logic to the execution block won't inadvertently change the program flow, and at the same time placing the opening brace on the same line as the if... and the else statements compacts the code a bit. To me the advantage with compact code is that you can see more of the program logic in a single screen which means less time scrolling up and down trying to follow the program logic. For that reason, I'm ruthless in eliminating blank line whitespace except to visually offset functions or methods.
Ron Christie
As much as I'm not a fan of that (even in JavaScript), that makes more sense than:
if (expr)
{
doSomethingForOneLine();
}
else
{
doAnotherThingForOneLine();
}You're version is at least concise, and no matter what some may say on CP, concise is important. Less is more. Always will be.
Jeremy Falcon
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Quite. The maturity of a programming language may (in part) be calculated by how many newlines are required. A proper language requires none.
Just for making that statement, you should be forced to a maintain decade-old Perl CGI system.
Perl is a scripting language; not a programming language.
