From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <3e1162e60907151159g5b031e99k2ad8171c9c268392@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220907151000s60671d2gfdb18cdf12c55097@mail.gmail.com> <0009e18319f5c60dc890463505286c1c@quintile.net> <3e1162e60907151159g5b031e99k2ad8171c9c268392@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:54:37 -0500 Message-ID: From: Jason Catena To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [9fans] Why does Acme only show text? Topicbox-Message-UUID: 21a9c636-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 > Again, the layout mode seems to be a bug in Haskell not a feature, but > that's not a popular belief in that community. It's only as complex as the various levels of scope you end up needing in your program. Meaningful whitespace enforces a clean, readable, delimiter-free style, making programs look more like each other. It's a lot easier to see (and not have in the first place) incorrect scope and continuation with whitespace than with braces or parentheses. Acme only has two indentation rules (nothing, or same as the existing line), so Emacs' constant re-parsing of the file to determine the correct indentation level is always going to be more "correct". This kind of programming support seems akin to me to colorful syntax highlighting: great if you need it, distracting once you really get good with a language. In the case of indenting, I might not actually code the next line right away, but auto-indent to just the right place for it means I have to go out of my way more often to get the cursor to where I actually want it. > Dave Jason Catena