Re: [TUHS] margins and indenting, and arbitrary c rules

I usually try not to join in to non-history threads (this list has too much random flamage on current topics, IMNSHO), but I'll make an exception here... I have what I think are somewhat unusual thoughts on nesting depth, etc, which are: keep the code structure as simple as possible. That means no complex nested if/then/else structures, etc (more below). I'd been moving in this direction for a while, but something that happened a long time ago at MIT crystalized this for me: a younger colleague brought me a routine that had a complex nested if/etc structure in it, which had a bug; I don't recall if he just wanted advice, or what, but I recall I fixed his problem by..... throwing away half his code. (Literally.) That really emphasized to me the downside of complexity like that; it makes it harder to understand, harder to debug, and harder for someone else (or you yourself, once you've been away from it for a while) to modify it. I've been getting more formal about that ever since. So, how did I throw away half his code? I have a number of techniques. I try not to use 'else' unless it's the very best way to do something. So instead of: if (some-conditional) { <some code>; } else { <some other code>; } (iterated, recursively) do: if (some-conditional) { <some code>; xxx; } <some other code>; where xxx is a 'return', or a 'break', or a 'continue'. That way, you can empty your brain once you hit that, and start with a clean slate. This is also an example of another thing I do, which is use lots of simple flow-control primitives; not go-tos (which I abhor), but loop exits, restarts, etc. Again, it just makes things simpler; once you hit it, you can throw away all that context/state in your mind. Keep the control flow structure as simple as possible. If your code is several levels of indent deep, you have much bigger problems than fitting it on the screen. I wrote up a complete programming style guide for people at Proteon working on the CGW, which codified a lot of this; if there's interest, I'll see if I can find a copy (I know I have a hardcopy _somewhere_). Noel