Re: OT: Why is C so popular?
Thus spake Steve Lamb (grey@dmiyu.org):
> On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 16:01:48 -0500
> Alex Malinovich <demonbane@the-love-shack.net> wrote:
> > I'm also very reluctant to learn Python because I'm very adamant
> > in how I use whitespace. Though I will need to pick it up sooner later.
> > As well as Ruby and probably PHP as well. You can never know too many
> > languages after all. :)
>
> That was one of two points that really stuck in my craw about Python. But
> ya know what? 2+ years later and now I go back to Perl code or poke through C
> code and I just find it nasty to paw through. And writing either of those,
> oy, don't even get me started. It's definitely something to get used to and
> the more used to doing things with block delimiters the more friction there is
> to doing it any other way. But I'd not go back and I wish other languages
> would take the same path.
I agree 100%, although it was my encounter with Miranda c1986 that
first prompted the "I'll indent how I like" reaction.
But you are right, having to indent properly produces much
cleaner-looking and easier to maintain code.
And I really appreciate the latter after having spent several hours on
afternoon about 15 years ago trying to find a bug in a C program (not
written by me), and missing it because poor and inconsistent
indentation by the original author made me misread the code.
After I found the bug the next task I set myself,, before doing
anything else, was to indent his code properly. All went much better
after that.
I also think that enforced indentation is a very good thing in a
language used to teach programming - one of the things that makes
python so good for that, in fact.
--
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to. |
|email: dbarker@camosun.bc.ca | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452 | Hermann Scherchen. |
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