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From: drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re^2: Indenting
Message-ID: <10595@claris.com>
Date: 3 Oct 89 14:20:30 GMT
References: <89273.185750TBC101@PSUVM.BITNET> <704@thor.wright.EDU> <9253@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Organization: Claris Corporation, Santa Clara CA
Lines: 27

mlw@pyr.gatech.EDU (Michael Williams) writes:
> ...
>matter of personal preference.  In fact, I have the following preference:

>    for i := 1 to 10 do begin
>       x := a[i];
>       b[i+1] := x + 10;
>    end;

>The "begin" does not waste a line on my screen, allowing me to see more of
>my program.  The "end" lines up with the "if", "for", or "while" statements,
>allowing quick and easy alignments of scope.

And further, to echo a previous poster, all you have to do to switch between
Pascal and Modula-2 when using this style is to insert/eliminate the "begin"
and everything still is fine (so long as you capitalize keywords, which
Michael doesn't and I do).

The thing I really don't understand is what the fuss is about this whole
subject.  From the early days of Pascal, one of the most popular "utility"
programs was the source reformatter.  These reformatters are extremely
powerful and fast today (take a look at PasMat, under Apple's Macintosh
Programming Workshop), allowing a wide variety of options and doing the
work for you that is clearly "gruntwork".  If a faculty member/grader really
wants a consistent format, then all (s)he has to do is run the sources
through one of these tools, with the options set to match personal
preferences.