Exceptional coding style

[Walter Bright]

On 1/14/2013 3:19 PM, Timon Gehr wrote:
> It is funny how statements about beauty of code tend to overemphasize the
> importance of trivial formatting rules. This is completely irrational.
> Formatting is a part of the process that could be trivially automated. It is not
> what the substance is.

Pedantically, you are correct.

But in practice, I find over and over again that carefully formatted code tends 
to go hand in hand with well designed code.

It's like internet postings. If you see a posting in ALL CAPS, or all lower 
case, or sloppy grammar/spelling, or long runon sentences, or no paragraph 
breaks, etc., it's almost certainly devoid of interesting content. If you see an 
electronics board with a rat's nest of wires and sloppy construction, odds are 
high it won't work. If you see a neatly laid out board, odds are it works.

And so on for just about every engineering/construction work.