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Date:      Tue, 2 Oct 2001 13:00:31 +0100
From:      j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>
To:        Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be>
Cc:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: code density vs readability
Message-ID:  <20011002130030.C97629@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
In-Reply-To: <p05100334b7d8e6544d17@[194.78.144.27]>; from brad.knowles@skynet.be on Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 04:26:05PM %2B0200
References:  <20010927141333.A44288@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <p05100334b7d8e6544d17@[194.78.144.27]>

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On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 04:26:05PM +0200, Brad Knowles wrote:
| At 2:13 PM +0100 9/27/01, j mckitrick wrote:
| 
| >  what guidelines do you personally follow to balance readability vs
| >  efficiency of source code?
| 
| 	Whatever feels right.  ;-)

It seems that changes every time I look at my code after working on
something else for a while.  :-)

| >  Can lack of blank lines and other whitespace easily become an impediment to
| >  readability?  When (IYO) is there TOO much?
| 
| 	Yup, this can be a problem.
| 
| 	Myself, I see it like writing prose.  I don't put a blank line 
| between every sentence, only between paragraphs.  However, as verbose 
| as I am, sometimes even just a single sentence is several lines long, 
| and becomes a paragraph in and of itself.  In C, I also like to put 
| opening and closing braces on a line by themselves, in a more 
| Pascal-like style as opposed to classic K&R style.

I agree.  I have emacs set for bsd-style indenting.  Try reading some of
the hardware driver code, or filesystem code.  Especially the older
stuff from Tahoe (IIUC).  Those guys just all grokked what they were
writing and could assume others did as well.  It's a trial by fire for
newbies reading it the first time.  (See 'You are not expected to
understand this' references  ;-)


jm
-- 
My other computer is your windows box.

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