Re: [boost] Macros at namespace scope: trailing semicolon?

From: Thomas Witt (witt_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-07-15 10:58:50

Dave Steffen wrote:
> 
> I would point out, first, that it probably isn't "a particular"
> editor, or "some" editor, but probably _most_ or even _all_ editors.
> I'm a member of the One True Church of Emacs; but I'd bet that those
> heathens^h^h^h^h^h^h^h fine people in the First Unified Church of vi,
> or any other even fancier IDE, will have the same problems.

There it is again, propaganda. Everybody knows there is _no_ fancier IDE 
than vi ;-).

> 
> I'd also argue that editor convenience is not an unimportant issue.
> My code editor is what I look at all day. It's probably what most of
> us look at all day.  Auto indentation and syntax highlighting are not
> necessary for the preservation of life and limb, freedom, justice, and
> the pursuit of happiness, but they _do_ go a long way to keeping me
> happy and sane.

AFAICS the point this discussion revolves around is not whether somebody 
is wrong or right it's all about how we value these arguments in 
everyday life.

While I think that on a technical basis Paul is right, I value automatic 
code indentation much higher than all the arguments in favour of not 
requiring the semicolon. Yes it is more pure but in my experience it 
causes way more trouble in practice then it does any good by educating 
programmers about the nature of macros. And yes it is sad to tailor your 
coding style to arguably insufficient tools but at the end of day there 
is no perfect tool and we need to get a job done in the best possible 
way given the circumstances.

As a sidenote I kind of doubt that making there usage looking 
syntactically diffferent from function calls will educate users about 
the way they work. To me doing away with the usual "macros are evil" 
attitude" sounds like a lot more promising approach to me.

Thomas