Re: Different ways of formatting/writing code

I use the 'cuddled else' style for subroutines, else-constructs, eval-blocks, actually for blocks in general. I indent the content of a block by one 'tab' stop (four spaces) and out-dent the terminating curly-brace on its own separate line foe visual distinction. That is my personal preference.

My text-editor (Vim with a set of macros; thanks Damian, Randal, Uri, Anonymmous, and others) does a fair job of highlighting Perl source code and has an auto-bounce-on-the-%-key feature that shows were the closing character matches up. Add that to a perl-tidy() run every week or so, and I have a reasonably easy tool chain I can use to enforce my coding style.

The important thing to remember is that "Coding Style" is a convention used to make your code easier for the Maintenance Programmer to understand. There is no one 'Holy and Sacred Way'; no Tao.

Like text editor choice, Style is good for discussions over Beer, but there is no one-true-way. (Rudyard Kipling said it better than I can -- "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing Tribal Lays, and every single one of them is right!", from 'In the Neolithic Age')

The worst thing you can do is *not* to have a consistent style. Pick a style of bracing and indentation that works for the way you feel comfortable writing your code a stick with it. Set up your editor of choice to produce that style and build a perl-tidy() configuration to regenerate code in that style. The MP will thank you for it. (And, there is nothing more embarrassing than picking a five-year-old piece of crufty old code, discovering that the coding style is "HidJe-ous! The indenting is inconsistent, and the bracing is **all** wrong!!", and then realizing who wrote it....)

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I Go Back to Sleep, Now.

OGB

Comment on Re: Different ways of formatting/writing code

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Re^2: Different ways of formatting/writing code by FunkyMonk (Bishop) on Dec 09, 2009 at 23:56 UTC
Style is good for discussions over Beer You want to add alcohol to a holy war? Sounds like poor advice to me:-) I think the most important thing is to pick a style and stick to it religiously. Unless style is inflicted upon you, of course.	[reply]
Re^3: Different ways of formatting/writing code by JadeNB (Chaplain) on Dec 10, 2009 at 01:05 UTC
I think the most important thing is to pick a style and stick to it religiously. I stick religiously to, and hotly defend, my personal standards—until someone convinces me that they've got better ones, at which point I adopt those with born-again passion and deride those who use the silly old convention. Just checking: It is true that, once you find the One True Way of indenting, good code writes itself, right?	[reply]
Re^4: Different ways of formatting/writing code by Gavin (Archbishop) on Dec 10, 2009 at 11:01 UTC
"I stick religiously to, and hotly defend, my personal standards—until someone convinces me that they've got better ones, at which point I adopt those with born-again passion and deride those who use the silly old convention." Be wary of change for change sake, nuances change often, but good style is enduring.	[reply]