this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
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[–] softwarist@programming.dev 1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Not sure I'm following the jump from significant whitespace to machine code. How are those related?

[–] Shanmugha@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Human and machine read differently. If you ignore that (in case with indentation), then why bother with writing human-friendly form of code, when what is going to be really executed is something else?

[–] softwarist@programming.dev 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

If anything, that sounds like an argument in favor of significant indentation, not against it. Humans and machines read differently, yes, which is why we tend to add whitespace and indentation to code even for programming languages where it's not significant. We do that expressly because it makes the code more human-friendly, so it's quite the opposite of ignoring their differences.

[–] Shanmugha@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

No, it is an argument against it. We indent code so that it is more comfortable to read it, not in order to make it easier to understand

[–] softwarist@programming.dev 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

You're mistaken:

Indentation is a secondary notation that is often intended to lower cognitive load for a programmer to understand the structure of the code.

[–] Shanmugha@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Lol. Go on, show me how it is easier to understand structure of the code when I am 3 levels down, first two are already out of sight

[–] softwarist@programming.dev 1 points 7 hours ago

That's not a coherent argument, but you don't have to agree with me. I think this discussion has run its course.