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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2024 20:46:27 +0200
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On 27/08/2024 17:03, John Ames wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 15:10:08 +0200
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> 
>>> (6) You want to add extra statements to the end of a block, but
>>> where IS the end? You have to INFER the ending by looking for a
>>> line with a smaller indent. But suppose you're at the bottom of a
>>> window; is that bottom line the last in the block, or is there
>>> another one at the same indent just out of sight? You have to
>>> tentatively keep peeking ahead!
>>
>> Keep your blocks small and neat.
> 
> That's very much one for the "good advice that is not always feasible
> in the Real World" file. Every project has its own natural balance of
> "large things that can be easily re-factored into sets of small things"
> (i.e. things you can function-ize) vs. "large things that cannot."
> 

Sure.  But if you keep such advice at hand, then it is often easier to 
make it feasible.  Occasionally code is best formatted with a big 
function or two, but most of the time it is possible and preferable to 
have relatively small function.

>>> (6a) And maybe there's big comment blocking in the middle of block;
>>> comments don't need nesting! If there are lots of comments and few
>>> statements, finding the end of the block (ie. the last statement of
>>> this block) can become quite an exercise.
>>
>> That applies to every programming language (unless you know of one
>> that doesn't support comments).
> 
> It applies very much moreso to languages where comments *must* follow
> the indentation level of the surrounding code, so that the deeper you
> go, the more lines you have to split comments across.
> 

It is not common to have to have indent comment lines (certainly in 
Python it is not necessary).  And if you find yourself writing large 
comments in the middle of a block in the middle of a function, it is 
probably time to consider re-organising the code and/or the comments and 
documentation.  (Again, there can be exceptions to this general rule.)