Eyeball Blocking
One of my big complaints with the Java computer language is you can’t
tell where some source code group ends without a detailed analysis of
every {} inside the group. The } is overloaded for so many purposes.
Is each inside a comment or String or char literal? If so, it
does not count in balancing. The eye cannot analyse such complicated
and deep nesting. You must to use a code-tidying tool to indent, which
the eye can understand, but often the indentation and {} nesting are
out of sync, at the very time you need the indentation most — when the
{} are unbalanced.
I hope some day the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) will mark
the ends of ifs, loops, methods, classes… with some subtle but
distinct visual clue in addition to indentation.
Possibilities:
sizes of {} {} {} {} {}, with bigger pairs on outer blocks.
colours of {}.
synthetic comments e.g.
// end method isReady
// endif
// end for int i
// end class Bonsai
These synthetic comments are not really in the code, and the text
shows in pale grey. You don’t even have to include the //.
icons: if icon loop icon When you configure them as small as a small
as a single letter, they still should be distinct, mainly via colour
than shape.
Later on today I will upload a formatted version of this post to
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
~ Joseph Campbell (born: 1904-03-26 died: 1987-10-31 at age: 83)