5 ms·

> any curly-brace language as one line, it's illegible. You might not be able to read it, but others can, so it is by definition not illegible. "Indention lan

by geocar 12y ago

> any curly-brace language as one line, it's illegible. You might not be able to read it, but others can, so it is by definition not illegible. "Indention language", on the other hand, has actually lost its meaning and therefore is illegible. > it's a huge waste of time that is best fixed by simply posting the code properly in the first place Helping others is never a waste of time, but telling people thy are too stupid to ask for help correctly is cruel.

vertex-four 12y ago
> Helping others is never a waste of time, but telling people thy are too stupid to ask for help correctly is cruel. Asking others politely to help you help them is not cruel in any way. If you allow a community to become a place where people can ask questions without putting any effort at all in themselves, you end up with all the people who can actually help leaving, and your community being full of people who will only ever put in the bare minimum of effort.
- geocar 12y ago
  "Help you help them" however is only necessary in the python example because data is lost. The indention doesn't mean anything to C programmers, and thus I need no help from them to help them.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    > The indention doesn't mean anything to C programmers So you could read and debug a 5000-line program written all on one line without reformatting it?
    - geocar 12y ago
      What does "5000 lines all on one line" mean? If it fits on a page I don't have trouble reading it. Line breaks tend to make it harder to fit on a page and not easier. Example: http://www.nsl.com/papers/origins.htm http://www.nsl.com/papers/origins.htm
      - vertex-four 12y ago
        You can honestly read and understand that as-is? And adding line breaks and proper indentation would make it absolutely no easier? Impressive. I don't think there's many C programmers who have that ability.
        geocar 12y ago
        Yes I can read this, and adding line breaks would not make it easier. In fact I think it would make it worse. This has come up before, if you're interested: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476189 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476702 It is also something I set out to learn how to do because I saw someone else do it: If someone produces smaller and faster code than me, then I should want to learn from it. When working with others, I will often extemporise my code for their sake. I sometimes make mistakes when doing this, but sometimes making friends is more important than fast and correct programs.
falcolas 12y ago
> it is by definition not illegible illegible, adjective: not clear enough to read. Says nothing about "others being able to read". A doctor's handwriting can be illegible to everyone but the doctor, and not be a contradiction to the definition of illegible. > Helping others is never a waste of time If someone cares so little as to paste unformatted code on a forum which provides simple tools to display formatted code, how much value can you really put in their ability to provide quality code? How is requiring someone else decipher something you didn't care enough to post correctly not ultimately a waste of everyone's time?

by geocar 12y ago

vertex-four 12y ago

> Helping others is never a waste of time, but telling people thy are too stupid to ask for help correctly is cruel. Asking others politely to help you help them is not cruel in any way. If you allow a community to become a place where people can ask questions without putting any effort at all in themselves, you end up with all the people who can actually help leaving, and your community being full of people who will only ever put in the bare minimum of effort.

geocar 12y ago
"Help you help them" however is only necessary in the python example because data is lost. The indention doesn't mean anything to C programmers, and thus I need no help from them to help them.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  > The indention doesn't mean anything to C programmers So you could read and debug a 5000-line program written all on one line without reformatting it?
  - geocar 12y ago
    What does "5000 lines all on one line" mean? If it fits on a page I don't have trouble reading it. Line breaks tend to make it harder to fit on a page and not easier. Example: http://www.nsl.com/papers/origins.htm http://www.nsl.com/papers/origins.htm
    - vertex-four 12y ago
      You can honestly read and understand that as-is? And adding line breaks and proper indentation would make it absolutely no easier? Impressive. I don't think there's many C programmers who have that ability.
      - geocar 12y ago
        Yes I can read this, and adding line breaks would not make it easier. In fact I think it would make it worse. This has come up before, if you're interested: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476189 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476702 It is also something I set out to learn how to do because I saw someone else do it: If someone produces smaller and faster code than me, then I should want to learn from it. When working with others, I will often extemporise my code for their sake. I sometimes make mistakes when doing this, but sometimes making friends is more important than fast and correct programs.

falcolas 12y ago

> it is by definition not illegible illegible, adjective: not clear enough to read. Says nothing about "others being able to read". A doctor's handwriting can be illegible to everyone but the doctor, and not be a contradiction to the definition of illegible. > Helping others is never a waste of time If someone cares so little as to paste unformatted code on a forum which provides simple tools to display formatted code, how much value can you really put in their ability to provide quality code? How is requiring someone else decipher something you didn't care enough to post correctly not ultimately a waste of everyone's time?