Poll: Spaces in if statements

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2875688

by jamesjyu • 15 years ago

15 31 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

kpumuk• 15 years ago

Definitely put spaces

mikelikespie• 15 years ago

Yes... BSD style FTW (aside from hard tabs I suppose) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indent_style#BSD_KNF_style

sim0n• 15 years ago

I personally prefer

    if( test )

BSeward2• 15 years ago

This is my personal preference too. I like that the condition is visually separated from the wrapping. I'm also prone to borderline-too-complex conditions, and this syntax makes those easier to focus on.

lucisferre2• 15 years ago

Do you also write that way ( if you know what I mean ).

zoowar2• 15 years ago

In C, 'if' is a keyword and a space always follows a keyword.

tzs2• 15 years ago

No.

strager• 15 years ago

That's how I do things (unless a semicolon follows the keyword, as in `return;`).

Exception: `typeof` in C# (`typeof(Object)`, for example).

zoowar2• 15 years ago

And one of the earlier C style guides I was exposed to. http://www.psgd.org/paul/docs/cstyle/cstyle.htm

collint2• 15 years ago

if test

misuse-permit• 15 years ago

Hm, I think you forgot a colon.

mattdeboard• 15 years ago

Most polite exception message ever.

collint2• 15 years ago

ruby or coffeescript

   true if true

mindcrime• 15 years ago

Hell no... looking at code formatted like that makes my eyeballs bleed and leaves me huddled in a corner, with a ghastly, haunted look in my eye, as I mutter shit like "Ȋa! Ȋa! Cthȕlhu fhtagn. H'nglȕi mglw'nafh Cthȕlhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtan!!" while some eldritch, unspeakable substance oozes down the wall...

georgieporgie2• 15 years ago

function(...)

conditional (...)

nxn• 15 years ago

And do you also add the space before the paren when you declare a function? I ask because a conditional block is often closer syntactically to a function definition than it is to a function invocation, yet I hardly ever see anyone put a space before the paren when defining a function.

michaelcampbell• 15 years ago

I'm guessing here, but I suspect functional comes from maths notation where there typically is no space between the function name and the paren.

    y = f(x)

georgieporgie2• 15 years ago

I don't see that there is any relationship between a function declaration and a conditional followed by a statement block. There is no reason to use different formatting for function declaration versus invocation.

Sigi• 15 years ago

Yes, but only recently. It's a bad habit I'm trying to break. Like others have stated, it's a keyword.

Webhacker• 15 years ago

if ( spaces ) {

  more readable code;

}

epynonymous• 15 years ago

i do it like this:

if( test == true ) {}

in python:

if test:

walrus• 15 years ago

I'm surprised so many people like spaces. I was under the impression that most people didn't use a space.

trbecker• 15 years ago

Yes, my team uses this style. Coding style is a matter of choice, and we should adapt to the style of our peers.

gcr• 15 years ago

How much does this really matter? I suppose I usually use spaces, but to be honest, this isn't something I notice.

tzs2• 15 years ago

I don't recall which I do, but I do know that I use less space in general nowadays than I did before syntax highlighting was basically everywhere. Anyone else change their style due to syntax highlighting?

jamesbritt• 15 years ago

Yes. I leave out parens whenever I can because position, spacing and syntax highlighting makes code quite clear.

So I really prefer, for example,

    if have_taste?
       ...

    unless stuff =~ some_regex
      ...

atheken• 15 years ago

Only n00bs use if statements. :-p

FrancescoRizzi• 15 years ago

I tend to worry about whitespaces in/around if statements only when the condition is complex. SO I tend to have "if(a==b)", but maybe "if( (a==b) && (c==d) )" and may have space between the 'if' and opening parenthesis when the condition is so complex to be multi-line (but then again, at that point a refactoring is needed/natural)

lucisferre2• 15 years ago

Ugh... This is the type of thing I love about languages like ruby and python, this kind of crap debate doesn't matter, there is really pretty much one way to write it.

Braced languages annoy me because every developer seems to have their own "special" brand of stupid formatting. Some perfect examples of this thinking are right here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indent_style#Horstmann_style

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indent_style#Whitesmiths_style

Think about basic writing people. Would you decide not to put a space before a parenthetic statement(obviously not)? Or like one comment suggested, you would never put a space after the opening or before the end ( unless you are just being ironic ).

It doesn't matter how you think it looks, it matters that you are trying to be different for the sake of being different. Stop it.

jhrobert• 15 years ago

if( test ){

Poll: Spaces in if statements

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