On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan@gmail.com>wrote:

> On 01/05/2013 3:34 PM, Joris Meys wrote:
>
>> +1 for "} else {" . It might seem a detail, but I agree wholeheartedly
>> that this would make teaching R easier.
>>
>
> Just one last comment to finish off my participation in this thread.  I
> think that in general, "+1" votes mean almost nothing. To have a change
> accepted, you need to convince a member of R Core that it's a good idea,
> without convincing another one that it's a bad idea.
>

It means indeed nothing else than "I agree with this." Which is about as
informative as "This is nonsense."

There's only one valid argument for that patch, and that one is given.
Until now, I didn't see a valid argument to not apply the patch. As in code
that would break if the patch was applied. But I'm no expert, so I'm gladly
proven wrong.



> Personally I listen to arguments for changes, but repetitions of the same
> argument are just irritating.  I was not convinced by the copy-and-paste
> argument.  I think that if this is causing you problems in teaching, you're
> doing it wrong.  I'm not going to be convinced by repetitions of that same
> argument.
>

It's not causing any problems in teaching, other than me answering to
questions of students with "yeah, that's how it's printed in the console,
but personally I won't do it like that. "

Why would I advise to use "} else { " in the first place? It's a matter of
semantics and opinion, I suppose. For me it makes it easier to find the
if() statement to which the else belongs. Or, in other words, using the "}
else {" construct stresses the fact that 'else' cannot stand on its own, it
always needs a previous if() clause. There's no harm in stressing that
through a minor change in the code formatting. But again, that's personal
opinion. I honestly didn't think such a small thing would cause such an
agile discussion...

Cheers
Joris


>
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