What about VB makes it "okay" in your view to have such deeply nested
functionality that would be abhorrent in C#? If it's that you have "End
If" "End For" etc then there's absolutely nothing to stop you from
commenting your C# in the same way:
for (...)
{
if (...)
{
...
} // If
} // For
Personally I don't like it or feel any need for it, but there's nothing
stopping you from doing it if you feel it adds readability.
I think he's talking about VB.NET's automatic formatting (indentation
of code blocks, etc.). And I agree with him - it's something that
VB.NET does better than C#. I still prefer to program in C#, but I
wish it would do the formatting more comprehensively like VB.NET does.
As a C++ programmer from way back (and a C programmer from even
further back), I understand and even sympathize somewhat with C's (and
C++'s and C#'s ) general philosophy of allowing you to format your
code any way you want. I used to think it was Tyranny if an
environment auto-indented code and so forth. And if it doesn't do it
WELL, then it IS very annoying. But the fact is, that formatting
(whether the opening { comes on the same line as the function
declaration or on the next line - aligned with the closing } - on the
same column as the first char of the declaration or indented, etc.) is
trivial and totally unimportant. That someone made that decision
(VB.NET) and enforces the indentations and so forth just frees you
from having to worry about it. Your (and more importantly, other
people's) code is ALWAYS left in a neat and orderly readable state and
all the programmers' code adheres to the standards. That's a good
thing.
I think it's good to let go of the insistance on formatting as we like
it and assimilate. They way VB.NET does it is not objectionable, and
it makes for readable and maintainable code.
I just wish they'd do it in C# too.
.