Re: Modify text appearance (put spaces after commas just for display)

[Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com>]

tomás wrote:

> Why wouldn't you?

Because it is confusing. Just looking at code
tells you a lot. What it is, if there are bugs.
And not just actively. It stores an image in
the brain for later use, if need be.

If you can't trust your eyes, or have to think
(translate in your brain) what it actually is,
that's either a huge disadvantage or an extra
effort which is error-prone and has no
advantage to it.

It also makes the "brain image storage"
much more difficult.

> (yah, snotty reply, sorry. What I mean is...
> we do that all the time, with syntax
> highlighting

The analogue situation with respect to syntax
highlighting would be syntax highlighting that
is inconsistent.

> moving the debugger "spot" around

Likewise, if the spot showed what isn't
"spotted", that'd be analogue.

> Customize (yes, we know you don't like that
> one). If you press me, hey, UTF-8.

Not following?

> What you see in your editor is already the
> result of layers upon layers of
> representation and cheating (newline? tab?
> C'm on! ;)

Newline are displayed as is. Again, the example
would rather be a displayed newline where there
isn't one, or a non-displayed one where there
is one.

Tabs shouldn't be used, the exception being
makefiles because they (tabs) are mandatory
there for reasons unknown to me.

> The nice thing about Emacs is that it not
> only caters for my (or your) needs :-)

... what do you mean?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573