bhoughto@pima.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) (02/06/91)
In article <15090@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes: >In article <2293@inews.intel.com> bhoughto@hopi.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes: >>Who's fomenting this >>bletcherous bowdlerization of my beloved C? > >Several programmers around here have come to use that style. Read: Doug has, because he likes to tab, but not a lot. >is another form of compromise that is fairly often seen. > while ( ... ) { > ... > } >has little to recommend it other than being the style used in K&R. As well as ANSI X3.159-1989, the "American National Standard for Information Systems - Programming Language - C"; which is not to imply that it is an actual dictum of that standard. >There is no point in reopening this old style debate. Which is precisely why I didn't. I merely noted that it's a very distinctive anthropological tradition that people must be learning from some central source, as it isn't shown in any of the many documents I've had the pleasure of perusing while learning, criticizing, and writing C, and that I'd like to know where it came from, not the reasons or rationalizations for its use: those I'll get from the source. I won't argue the particulars of its aesthetics (e.g., whether or not it scans easier, allies the code to the structure better, gives new programmers a leg-up, or saves on e-postage). ***ALERT*** Rare pertinent informational tidbit: Some have written (appropriately in email) saying they recognize it as an old RATFOR style. >You might ask yourself why you haven't been exposed to more >variation in C coding style before now. Because most people code gracefully, until put off by misguided, internal, corporate, coding "standards," and de riguer stylism. It's like some sort of overwrought, paint-by-numbers, computational neo-classicism is running roughshod over the pure, honest beauty of computational impressionism. --Blair "Every once in a while, it pays to keep a raw-hide chew-bone in your briefcase..."