[ale] Ubuntu 18.04 release notes

[Pete Hardie]

>Ever seen C code worked on by 4 different coders?

My worst was code that I believe was edited in WordPad with a
non-monospaced font.  Noting lined up to the left at all


On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 3:00 AM Steve Litt via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 10:00:46 -0700
> Alex Carver via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>
> > On 2018-04-27 09:43, Kyle Brieden via Ale wrote:
> > > https://twitter.com/sadoperator/status/989895215442837504
> > >
> > > But seriously, though, I appreciate YAML for what it is, and that
> > > is "a human readable markup language".  It's easy to look over it
> > > and suss out what is what, much like JSON.  I prefer JSON to YAML,
> > > but they're both widely used and well implemented most of the
> > > time.
> >
> > JSON is reasonably human readable and certainly does not depend on
> > indentation to read it.
> >
> > I can read and write this:
> >
> > {
> > "array1": {"A", "B", "C", "D"},
> > "struct1": {"param1": val, "param2": val},
> > "struct2": {"param3": val, "param4": val}
> > "list":
> >     {
> >       {"list_item_id": id, "list_item_name": "foo",
> > "list_item_param": param }, {"list_item_id": id, "list_item_name":
> > "foo", "list_item_param": param }, {"list_item_id": id,
> > "list_item_name": "foo", "list_item_param": param } }
> > }
> >
> > far easier and with less likelihood of errors
>
> OK, but how about this:
>
> {"array1":{"A","B","C","D"},"struct1":{"param1":val,"param2":val},
> "struct2":{"param3":val,"param4":val}"list":{{"list_item_id":id,
> "list_item_name":"foo","list_item_param":param},{"list_item_id":id,
> "list_item_name":"foo","list_item_param":param},
> {"list_item_id":id,"list_item_name":"foo","list_item_param":param}}}
>
> Every format/language I know of that's not indentation aware has end
> tags, which are ultimately readable by machines, but not so much by
> humans. Which is why humans usually lay out their
> indentation-independent code with strict indentation rules. There's a
> name for getting rid of the spacing in C: *Obfuscated* C. You ever try
> working on a large web page where they got rid of newlines to save a
> few bytes? Whatamess!
>
> Ever seen C code worked on by 4 different coders?
>
> int square(i){
>    return(i*i)
> }
>
> int cube(i)
>    {
>    return(i*i*i)
>    }
>
> int quad(i)
> {
>    return(i*i*i*i)
> }
>
> int quint(i)
>    {
>    return(i*i*i*i)
> }
>
>
> int
>    sept(i)
>       {
>    return(i*i*i*i*i*i)
> }
>
> The preceding are only the tip of the iceberg. There are
> plenty more indentation standards. Programmers go to war over this
> stuff.
>
> And what happens when a maintenance programmer misunderstands some
> careless indentation, and adapts his end tags to that bogus
> understanding?
>
> The fact is, most humans need indentation context to quickly understand
> a program or format. Since the indentation context is necessary, why
> not make it part of the format, so we're all on the same page, and,
> hooray, get rid of the end tags?
>
> Don't get me wrong, indentation dependency doesn't work for everything.
> HTML and XML without end tags would be a horror movie. But where it
> works, I think indentation dependency is often an improvement.
>
> This is just one of the reasons I like Python so much.
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> April 2018 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
>      of the Successful Technologist
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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-- 
Pete Hardie
--------
Better Living Through Bitmaps
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