Optional braces

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 8/26/11 8:48 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:03:21 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu
> <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
>
>> It's a legitimate concern, and there's no right response to it. My
>> point is that the argument is weak and caving to it would be a
>> mistake. In essence Nick claims he can't be bothered to change:
>>
>> if (long_expression_one)
>> if (long_expression_two)
>> if (long_expression_three)
>> statement
>>
>> with
>>
>> if ((long_expression_one)
>> && (long_expression_two)
>> && (long_expression_three))
>> statement
>>
>> which adds a grand total of two parens. The claim "blah blah long
>> thing with the simple unrelated condition requiring ugly line breaks
>> and screwy formattng/alignment in a big pita to read uber-expression.
>> fuck this shit. It looks ok in english, but in code the damn thing
>> reads like a fucking regex" does not stand scrutiny, and mixing in the
>> matter of indentation is a red herring as indentation is unaffected by
>> the introduction of the rule.
>>
>> I'll also note that the argument smacks of the misleading vividness
>> fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_vividness). We
>> shouldn't shelve an idea because a poor argument against it was
>> eloquently phrased.
>>
>> Finally, we've derived significant benefits from ideas in the same
>> spirit. I don't see signs that we've started overdoing it, or that the
>> returns are diminishing. To me all signs point to a fertile approach
>> to explore.
>
> Hm... the only problem I see with simply disallowing if(a) if(b) is this:
>
> if(a)
> while(condition)
> if(b)
> statement;
> else // oops! this goes with if(b)
> statement;
>
> Or would this be disallowed as well? This could not be combined into a
> single if statement obviously, so the only the option to fix this is
> adding braces.

I don't think that bug is bound to occur with any significant frequency. 
Over the years I've seen ample evidence that the mismatched else in 
conjunction with repeated ifs causes bugs, both in other people's code 
and (alas) my own. But I have never seen or heard of a case in which an 
inserted additional control flow statement still caused problems.

> I'd hate to see this disallowed, which seems perfectly legitimate:
>
> if(a)
> while(condition)
> if(b)
> statement;

Me too.


Andrei