Subject: Re: Time to update KNF?
To: Mike Cheponis <mac@Wireless.Com>
From: Andrew Brown <atatat@atatdot.net>
List: tech-kern
Date: 01/19/2000 14:49:54
>> >Eventually, I hope we can dispense with 80 characters (like the Windows
>> >world has already done) but for all the reasons mentioned here, I'm not
>> >advocating changing that.
>> ...
>> for a plain text editor, you probably want to use a fixed spaced font,
>> and stick to 80 columns.  like windows still does.
>
>I didn't mean user output windows, I meant -code- windows. (We're all talking
>-code- standards here, right?)

that's true.

>When people user Visual Studio to write Windows code, they don't even
>-know- where the 80-column boundary is.  Windows long variable names help
>program comprehensibility (but not hungarian notation, which has been
>depricated long ago).

okay.  but if someone's writing code under windows using visual
studio, they're not writing netbsd code.  our code is held to a higher
standard.  :)

>But I'm not arguing for > 80 column source code.

which i'm somewhat against, but then again, i guess i really should
get a new laptop.  this one is almost four years old.

>I'm arguing for 2-4 space indents.

i can dig that.  but for four *spaces*, with two *spaces* used for
:labels (for cases or gotos) or continued statements, and with
statements that are parenthetical (ie if or printf()) indented to the
matching open paren.  oh, and adjacent bunches of eight spaces
shoule be replaced by one tab.  but that's just me.

i mainly use emacs for writing code.  i'll use vi if it's smaller (i'm
just not as comfortable in vi), cat if it's really small, and even dd
(of=foo.c) if i'm trying to confuse someone who's watching over my
shoulder.

>What I fail to understand is that if we have data that supports that 2-4
>space indents produces more comprehensible code, and we believe that more
>comprehensible code leads to fewer errors, less time understanding the code,
>and a generally more robust system, why don't we do it?

i dunno.  i know that i feel fine reading (and writing) code for
netbsd, but that my own code (which i also write) i use a different
indent style for (hmm...seems my english is leaving me).  i'd like it
if they were the same, but they're not.

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