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Message:

Brace yourself

Posted by Matt Gerrans on November 22, 2001 at 3:10 PM

> Guess that makes it 2-2.

> Also, having the opening brace on the same line as the associated line of code takes up less lines. But before you all flame me, no I dont code "command1; command2; command3;" on one line :-). I just think it looks neater.

> JMHO, though

> Jody

Yes, I think it is mostly based on what you learned first. Whatever that was will seem natural.

When I first learned to program on Windows, Petzold's Programming Windows 3.1 was the main reference. I also learned whole Hungarian notation (where you decorate variable name to death with type information) and it seemed normal for many years. It took me a while to unlearn that habbit, but now, it seems so clear to me what a bad idea Hungarian Notation is. Same thing with curlies. I originally learned the more common

void foo( blah ) {
   ...
}

void foo( blah ) 
{
   ...
}

It is mostly a subjective thing, so it is a good thing code-formatters are abundant.

One of the things I love about the Python programming language is that there are no curly braces at all. Guido was smart enough to realize that they are not even needed.

- mfg

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