Random Terrain's Tetraternarium

Awesome perspective RT great article!   

 

We've gone overboard with multiple markup colors and massive indentation - I don't like either of these. The squiggly red underlines are even worse and frequently there by mistake in some editors.

 

The most offending aspect of indentation in large Microsoft SQL Server projects with many programmers is that indentation can't be relied on because SQL Management Studio tool doesn't automatically indent anything and manual indenting tends to go out of alignment over time. There are programmers who spend a great deal of time reviewing and redoing the indentation to understand the programs when this happens.

 

Any fans of indentation can PM me for a stored procedure program I wrote for Microsoft SQL Server that adds indentation to any stored procedure.

 

I use it on my own (left aligned) stored procedure programs when other developers request indentation, and use it to fix other developers indentation on large procs where it invariably goes off.

 

You would like this RT - I have another program I use that just removes SQL proc indentation completely so I can see the program easier, then I can run it through the indenter when I'm done so indenting programmers can follow the indentation. I feel the same way about markup colors, the IDE for SuperCharger Disk BASIC is refreshingly monochrome for that reason and has no indentation except that a space can be used instead of a line number or label. 

 

BASIC is great for breaking indentation, next x,y or next x:next y are often rewritten on separate lines by indenting fanatics.  

 

I don't indent my code at all, so I can scroll left and right less often.  However, I do use the colors to help me read the code a bit better.