I feel perhaps you are missing my point -- you are talking about block separation and vertical space, I am talking about grouping of logical units. I agree wit

I feel perhaps you are missing my point -- you are talking about block separation and vertical space, I am talking about grouping of logical units. I agree with your points for functions, (most)loops, switches, and so in, but for if/else try/catch/finally do/while an other multiblock statements, I think it helps to have some convention to group them, other than indent level. The blocks depend on each other, not just are in proximity. I would never do: for (a;b();a++) { stuff(); } if (test) { ... } because the if and the for are not parts of the same logical chunk. Nor would I do: ... } else { catchall(); } if (new_test()) { ... Again because a new if is new logical chunk. Basically, it isn't about block delineation or about vertical space, its about grouping logical units that have multiple blocks at the same nesting level.