Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!tut!santra!news
From: news@santra.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Style rules for C shops
Message-ID: <12567@santra.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 88 16:57:45 GMT
References: <12120@santra.UUCP> <1962@bgsuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: nbo@hutcs.UUCP (Nassim Bouteldja)
Distribution: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.c
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 24
Summary: Some style rules cannot be taken care of by beautifiers

In article <1962@bgsuvax.UUCP> denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) writes:
>>The ideal solution, it seems to me, would be to have a beautifier that
>puts all the code into your company style, just before you freeze the
>code.  Of course, if you don't trust the beautifier, you could write a
>short c program the would compare the before and after ignoring
>multiple white-space characters, to verify that it didn't change the
>source code.  
>...
That sounds like a nice solution, except that there are certain styles
that a beautifier cannot produce. For instance, how do you make it
produce meaningful variable names? How do you make sure the program uses
constants (defines) when appropriate? What do you do with too lengthy
procedures? 
These are all style metrics that are important to asess the readability
of a program. I agree that characteristics like indentation and blank lines
can be taken care of by a beautifier.

More comments appreciated.

Nassim Bouteldja
Helsinki University of Technology
Dept. of Computer Science
Finland
E-mail : nbo@hutcs.UUCP