Andrew wrote: ↑March 13th, 2024, 7:17 pm
I've noticed that comments in the pattern files seem to use three different formats for paragraphs:
1. Blank line before each paragraph...
2. Indentation on the 1st line of a paragraph...
3. Indentation on all lines of a paragraph except the 1st...
We seem to be moving to #3 as the preferred format. In my eyes it's the ugliest of the 3 formats. Is there some reason for that weird indentation? Format #1 would be my preference (easiest to read, and to write).
Well... there's definitely a reason. It just might not be a _good_ reason.
The reason is simply that I do pretty much all of the checkins for Golly's pattern collection, and for a while now I've been putting everything in format #3, with hanging-indent paragraphs. Definitely this is just a personal preference on my part, and not a particularly strong personal preference.
Mostly I think that hanging indents solved a problem I was having with deciding whether to include blank lines in comments. Recent comments almost always have a "Reference" section at the end with a link to a relevant location on the forums, and/or to a LifeWiki page. If "Reference:" goes on the same line as a forums URL, then the line is a little bit longer than all the other comment lines. So I've been moving the URL to its own line.
Then I can never decide whether blank #C lines are needed before and after that "Reference" section. For the paragraph format separated by blank #C lines, seems cleanest to include them, like in this re-work of muzik's latest pattern:
Code:
Select all
#N noninteger-replication-order.rle
#O wwei23, 23 October 2019
#C
#C This anomalous fractal does not appear to contain an integer
#C count of sub-units at any scale, unlike the other fractals we've
#C seen so far.
#C
#C Reference:
#C https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84439#p84439
#C
x = 29, y = 24, rule = B2e3aiky4jnqtwz5cjqry6aei/S1c2-k3ajry4cjkrt5-eqr6i
7b3o9b3o$8bo11bo$8bo11bo$7b3o9b3o$12bo3bo$11bobobobo$11bobobobo$12bo3b
o7$8bo11bo$7b3o9b3o$7bobo9bobo2$12bo3bo3$b2o23b2o$o2bo21bo2bo$b2o8b2o
3b2o8b2o!
So I probably chose hanging indents just because I could safely get rid of all of the empty-and-yet-not-empty #C lines. More actual comments will fit in the pop-up window in Golly without any scrolling, and yet it's still clear where each new paragraph starts.
So -- long story short, it's an arbitrary decision on my part, and I don't really care what the standard is, only that there _is_ a clear standard. If it's important enough to enough people that comment formatting should be done in some different way, then I don't mind switching to format #1 for future check-ins.
Are there more people that dislike the hanging-indent standard, enough to say so here? Or, even better, is there anyone who dislikes the hanging-indent so much that they're willing to go through the whole pattern collection and change the comments so they're in some other consistent format?