🚀 go-pugleaf

"Tim Tyler" <tim@tt1.org> wrote in message news:H03GIu.JA5@bath.ac.uk...
> In comp.lang.java.advocacy Dale King <KingD@tce.com> wrote:
> : "Jon Skeet" <skeet@pobox.com> wrote in message
> :> Tim Tyler <tim@tt1.org> wrote:
>
> :> > Previously my approach was to forget about this - and let the
formatter
> :> > take care of it for me.
> :> >
> :> > Since starting to use Eclipse I haven't yet found a formatter that
> :> > works with it that is at all usable.
> :> >
> :> > Currently my approach is to let my code get into a mess - on the
grounds
> :> > that *someday* I'll find a decent formatter.
> :>
> :> Have you tried Jalopy yet? I don't use it myself (I format my code by
> :> hand) but I gather it's meant to be pretty flexible.
>
> : Yes, he has. We've talked about it. Unfortunately Tim has some weird
> : conventions that it doesn't support.
>
> I believe you also reported that you couldn't get it to behave as you
> would like ;-)

To be more correct, I said that I haven't been able to get ANY formatter to
behave exactly as I would like. Jalopy is fairly good but had an idiosncrasy
with blank line insertion. I have reported it as a bug.

> : What he really wants is an indenter, not a formatter. All he wants it
> : to control is indentation.
>
> I'd be quite happy with a formatter - *if* it worked properly.
>
> The problem is that formatters rarely seem to work properly.
> The code they spit out typically looks to me like an undesirable mess.

And that is because you are in the minority on some of the ways you want
things to look. That doesn't necessarily make you wrong (although you are
;-), but does mean it is less likely your style will be supported.

> My #1 appliction is reindenting code as I edit it.  A tool that /just/ did
> that would be very useful to me.  However tools that try and control every
> aspect of the appearance of the code, don't understand what they are doing
> and mess everything up are not very useful to me.  Currently I find Jalopy
> falls in the latter category.

Thus my comment that what you want is an indenter, not a formatter.

> I've got a formatting problem with Eclipse:

The formatter included with Eclipse is worthless.


--
  Dale King