
"I was really excited to write this article, because it gave me an excuse to really think about what beautiful code is. I still don't think I know, and maybe it's entirely subjective. I do think the two biggest things, for me at least, are stylistic indenting and maximum const-ness. A lot of the stylistic choices are definitely my personal preferences, and I'm sure other programmers will have different opinions. I think the choice of what style to use is up to whoever has to read and write the code, but I certainly think it's something worth thinking about. I would suggest everyone look at the Doom 3 source code
because I think it exemplifies beautiful code, as a complete package: from system design down to how to tab space the characters." John Carmack himself
replies in the comments.
Member since:
2006-09-02
if (x = y) then dosomthing else dosomthingelse(y);
That is a pure statement, with no semicolon after the first clause. Geddit?
I don't. How is that any different from
(x == y) ? dosomething() : dosomethingelse(y);
?
Maybe it looks a bit more cryptic than its begin/end counterpart if you embed these kind of statements into each other, but not by much. Stacking ternary statements is always ugly and unreadable, regardless of the language used.