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From: amull@Morgan.COM (Andrew P. Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Indenting
Summary: What about Modula-2
Message-ID: <413@s5.Morgan.COM>
Date: 1 Oct 89 15:15:36 GMT
References: <89273.161831TRM900@PSUVM.BITNET> <89273.185750TBC101@PSUVM.BITNET> <19038@ut-emx.UUCP>
Organization: Morgan Stanley & Co. NY, NY
Lines: 38


Recently, a thread about upper case = ugly and 'how is good form for
source ahieved through indenting?'.

1. Modula-2 (Pascal's younger brother) has the awful case sensitivity
disease, so that keywords MUST be capitalized. 

2. Modula-2 has done away with some of Pascal's begins, so a slightly
different style of indenting prevails.

3. There are at least three sensible indenting conventions, and a good
discussion of indenting can be found in David Gries' excellent book:
'The Science of Computer Programming'.

Given these facts, do we really want to insist on one style for our
students? What if they have already learned Modula-2? It's not the
same as if they've been blighted by C, and forcing them to conform to
an arbitrary restriction will make them think less of Pascal progrmmers.

It seems to me that the philosophy of Pascal is to use what seems to
be a set of restrictive rules about code as a springboard to inferences
about the semantics of the code. (What you see is what it will do, sort
of...). Unless one can show that one indenting practice is more powerful
than another, the apllication of grades should really be left to the
perception of a consistent indenting method, rather than blindly
following a single given.

Finally: Never insist on lower case. (I always use it, and prefer it),
but there are people who cannot read lower case, due to their visual
impairment. It is so trivial to convert from upper to lower case that
no instructor should ever use this point for grades.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt

P.S. I was a Mathematics Professor for enough years to be in sympathy 
with someone who wants to uniformize the homework he has to grade, but
fair is fair. Anything less will lose you respect.