On May 20, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Gregory Brown wrote:

> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Juan Zanos  
> <juan_zanos / talkhouse.com> wrote:
>>
>> On May 20, 2009, at 2:51 PM, Rick DeNatale wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 2:35 PM, J Haas <Myrdred / gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On May 20, 8:51 am, Rick DeNatale <rick.denat... / gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Seriously, if you measure things by avoiding extra keystrokes,  
>>>>> get a
>>>>> better editor.  I value readability over parsimony of lexical  
>>>>> items.
>>>>
>>>> Cluttering up your code with "end" everywhere makes it less  
>>>> readable,
>>>> not more.
>>>
>>> Honestly, that's subjective. Some people prefer delimiters some  
>>> don't.
>>
>> Is it subjective?   Neither method is ambiguous.  So no problem  
>> there.  But
>>  scrolling 16% more often?   That must have some cost to readability.
>
> If you break up code into more files, or use a folding editor, or use
> an editor that lets you jump to code by a method name, scrolling is a
> non-issue.
>
> Rick's point remains.  If this is an issue you're facing, get a  
> better editor.
>
> -greg
>


You want me to have even more files and spend even more time folding  
and unfolding things.  And you assume I use a crummy editor and there  
is a better one that magically makes a surprising number of wasted  
lines irrelevant.  I think you accidentally illustrated that extra  
lines have a cost.

I can understand that people grow attached to certain styles.  That's  
no big deal.  I really like Ruby a lot.  I like it better than  
Python.  I believe in most ways it's a better language.   But I'm  
willing to admit that Python programs are generally shorter and that  
is an advantage.   It's silly to pretend it isn't.

Maybe it's too hard to get rid of the redundancy.   Or maybe we just  
don't know how yet.  I'm not sure.   But let us at least admit it's  
there.  We should give people credit for trying to solve the problem.