Hi Ben,

�� have you read Kent Beck's formatting rules?�� I wish we would adhere to these in our formatters.�� And I wish he would put the formatting rules in the public domain on the web (Kent?).�� He actually justifies the rules he chooses; they're not just personal preferences.�� And IMO they produce eleant, readable Smalltalk.�� I have to say your block formatting below is horrible.�� Blocks are blocks. ��[ & ] are /not/ the same as { & } in C. ��[...] define an *object*, not merely delimit syntax.�� As such any good Smalltalk format will emphasize the objectness of blocks.�� And IMNERHO that is to make them rectangles as in

�� self ifIWantedYouToWriteC ifTrue:

�� [self useABloodyCCompiler.

�� self useCCMinusPToMakeSenseOfTheDamageDoneByTheCPreProcessor]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 6:23 PM, Ben Coman <btc@openinworld.com> wrote:

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 2:28 AM, stepharo <stepharo@free.fr> wrote:
>
> I do not really like all the formattings of kent. Because sometimes it just
> does not work.
> But this is why we ask franck (an interns to start to have a look).
>
> For example I do not like
>
>�� self xxx
>�� ifTrue:
>�� [
>�� self bla
>�� self foo.

Agreed. Unneccessary waste of a line.

> in the current default formatter.
>�� and I prefer
>
>�� self xxx
>�� ifTrue: [ self bla.
>�� self foo
> But here the problem is that the�� self foo�� is not tab aligned because
> ifTrue: [
>
>�� self xxx
>�� ifTrue:
>�� [ self bla.
>�� self foo
> So may be this one is a nice compromise

Not quite there. The "self bla" is still not actually vertically aligned.

> I think that we should change some settings. In fact in alpha things are
> there to evolve until the release :)

I like...
�� self xxx
�� ifTrue:
�� [�� self bla.
�� self foo.
�� ].

for three reasons:
�� * the first statement of the block is vertically aligned with the rest
�� * vertical alignment of paired brackets makes visual matching *simple*
�� * the vertical whitespace enforced by the closing bracket on its
own visually groups blocks.

Now some people don't like the closing brace on its own because they
prefer code density. So maybe this...

�� self xxx
�� ifTrue:
�� [�� self bla.
�� self foo. ]
�� ifFalse:
�� [�� self baa.
�� self moo. ].

But still I prefer...

�� self xxx
�� ifTrue:
�� [�� self bla.
�� self foo.
�� ]
�� ifFalse:
�� [�� self baa.
�� self moo.
�� ].

cheers -ben

_,,,^..^,,,_

best,��Eliot