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Code is not text

December 12, 2002 | co.comments icon co.mments

Incoherence

   int outletNumber = 25;
   Outlet myOutlet = new Outlet(outletNumber);
   ConnectionListener myListener = new SMTPListener();


Now, what do you all think of this alternative:



   int                outletNumber = 25;

   Outlet             myOutlet     = new Outlet(outletNumber);

   ConnectionListener myListener   = new SMTPListener();



Much more readable, right?

Not for me.


December 12, 2002 02:44 AM

Comments

Charles Miller
(December 12, 2002 03:19 AM #)

Me neither. Your eye has to wander across wide expanses of whitespace to line everything up. It's not a natural way to read.

The spread-out way makes the vertical relationships of the block (e.g int-Outlet-ConnectionListener) more visually important than the horizontal declarations. This runs totally counter to the way we wish to read and understand the code. You get little out of reading "int-Outlet-ConnectionListener", you get everything out of "int outletNumber = 25;"

Or at least that's how I read it. I was going to post something like that on my blog, but I already did a coding conventions post last week, and I wouldn't want to look obsessive. ;)

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