[squeak-dev] autoIndent preference (was: Preference settings for 5.3 release)

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Tue Dec 24 03:44:21 UTC 2019


(can o' worms opened in other thread, these can get detailed, how about one
thread per preference?)

TL;DR;

The default setting for autoIndent should not be based on our own personal
preference, but who we're targeting the release image for:

      users : default autoIndent should be false
      developers : default autoIndent should be true

Jakob wrote:

I think autoIndent is really practical when writing code in blocks or
> cascades, or otherwise indented text. Why do you feel that it should it be
> off by default?
>

Hi Jakob, I keep it off in my images.  Often I'll want to type code from a
"stream of consciousness" of something in my mind.  I prefer the luxury of
simply letting the code fly out my fingers as fast as they can type,
ignoring formatting until I get my entire thought typed.  At that point, if
I'm unsure about the code, I might leave it there ugly on purpose as
indication of unfinished code.  Otherwise, if I know it's good, I simply
hit the pretty-print button, and all of the indenting is done at once
without having expended a single thought or keystroke about it.

autoIndent tries to commingle the concerns of coding with formatting, which
I find distracting for my above style.  However, I know it's a feature
that's caught on in other editors, so possibly something developers from
outside might expect..

Users, OTOH, might prefer standard text-editor behavior, [Return] is to
col:1.

Best,
  Chris



>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/attachments/20191223/2e084a2b/attachment.html>


More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list