3 ms·

I started a project out using jade in nodejs, after a while I had a page with enough elements/nesting going on that I was having a hard time keeping track of wh

by 6DM 10y ago

I started a project out using jade in nodejs, after a while I had a page with enough elements/nesting going on that I was having a hard time keeping track of what was grouped where. Particularly when taking some work a designer did, making it jade compliant, then pasting in. Aside from a short "if" statement, I now no longer think it's sexy to abandon ending notation whether it be braces, elements, etc.

gravypod 10y ago
I'd suggest you not leave if statements un-braced. I remember a study where they found the most common bug in most experienced open source developers was leaving out the braced initially, going back to make a change, and having that change introduce a bug. Basically they had if (x) then() and went back and did if (x) new_call() then() and caused an error that happened silently. This is something you definitely want to avoid and I personally don't trust myself, after a no-sleep code fixing bender, to remember to add {} around something if I'm editing an if. I'd probably forget. Again, I'd say shorter does not mean better.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- papaf 10y ago
  One way round this is to put single statement ifs on a single line: if (x) then(); If you add another statement to the if, its obvious from the indent that you need to use braces.
  - petre 10y ago
    Yup, I always do this when writing JavaScript or other languages that allow prefix single statements with or without braces. Otherwise I use braces if the statement is too long to fit in the editor w/o forcing you to scroll. Perl only allows postfixed single statements w/o braces, so you're safe: say "yes" if $condition; if ($condition) { say "yes"; $affirmative++; }
- gpderetta 10y ago
  7: warning: this 'if' clause does not guard... [-Wmisleading-indentation] if (x) ^~ 9 : note: ...this statement, but the latter is misleadingly indented as if it is guarded by the 'if' then(); ^~~~
  - gravypod 10y ago
    Relying on compiler-specific features.... where did I hear that before? Oh yea, undefined behavior. Do you like using undefined behavior?
    - gpderetta 10y ago
      That's just a warning. It has no effect on the generated code. It is perfectly acceptable, and in fact considered proper engineering practice, to compile with multiple compilers to take advantage of their warning and static analysis capabilities.
parenthephobia 10y ago
I don't see how having closing braces makes it easier to see what's grouped, though. If you have a page with enough elements and nesting going on that indentation doesn't make its structure clear, I find it hard to believe that you'll see </div></div></div> and think "oh yes, I just closed <div class='wombat'>". A good editor may highlight the region that a </div> covers, and/or show the opening element and/or the "path" to the current element in the status bar. But, a good editor that understands indented syntax could do the same. It is a fault in code editors that they don't often have good features for navigating around source which uses indenting. This isn't a problem with the syntax. FWIW, I use SLIM - which is a Jadelike language for Ruby - and I hate having to deal with raw HTML. I find it incredibly hard to navigate, primarily because of the lack of indentation. All too often you think a particular block is contained in some element but it turns out it just looks that way because somebody decided to use indentation whitespace decoratively.

by 6DM 10y ago

gravypod 10y ago

I'd suggest you not leave if statements un-braced. I remember a study where they found the most common bug in most experienced open source developers was leaving out the braced initially, going back to make a change, and having that change introduce a bug. Basically they had if (x) then() and went back and did if (x) new_call() then() and caused an error that happened silently. This is something you definitely want to avoid and I personally don't trust myself, after a no-sleep code fixing bender, to remember to add {} around something if I'm editing an if. I'd probably forget. Again, I'd say shorter does not mean better.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
papaf 10y ago
One way round this is to put single statement ifs on a single line: if (x) then(); If you add another statement to the if, its obvious from the indent that you need to use braces.
- petre 10y ago
  Yup, I always do this when writing JavaScript or other languages that allow prefix single statements with or without braces. Otherwise I use braces if the statement is too long to fit in the editor w/o forcing you to scroll. Perl only allows postfixed single statements w/o braces, so you're safe: say "yes" if $condition; if ($condition) { say "yes"; $affirmative++; }
gpderetta 10y ago
7: warning: this 'if' clause does not guard... [-Wmisleading-indentation] if (x) ^~ 9 : note: ...this statement, but the latter is misleadingly indented as if it is guarded by the 'if' then(); ^~~~
- gravypod 10y ago
  Relying on compiler-specific features.... where did I hear that before? Oh yea, undefined behavior. Do you like using undefined behavior?
  - gpderetta 10y ago
    That's just a warning. It has no effect on the generated code. It is perfectly acceptable, and in fact considered proper engineering practice, to compile with multiple compilers to take advantage of their warning and static analysis capabilities.

parenthephobia 10y ago

I don't see how having closing braces makes it easier to see what's grouped, though. If you have a page with enough elements and nesting going on that indentation doesn't make its structure clear, I find it hard to believe that you'll see </div></div></div> and think "oh yes, I just closed <div class='wombat'>". A good editor may highlight the region that a </div> covers, and/or show the opening element and/or the "path" to the current element in the status bar. But, a good editor that understands indented syntax could do the same. It is a fault in code editors that they don't often have good features for navigating around source which uses indenting. This isn't a problem with the syntax. FWIW, I use SLIM - which is a Jadelike language for Ruby - and I hate having to deal with raw HTML. I find it incredibly hard to navigate, primarily because of the lack of indentation. All too often you think a particular block is contained in some element but it turns out it just looks that way because somebody decided to use indentation whitespace decoratively.