Re: elisp coding conventions

[Miles Bader]

brunskilly@yahoo.com (George J.) writes:
> >   * Don't make a habit of putting close-parentheses on lines by
> >     themselves; Lisp programmers find this disconcerting. 
> 
> My question is why?  You would never do this in C, (the language I'm
> most familiar with.)  It prevents from easily commenting out a line,
> as well as cutting and pasting.
> 
> Yet it seems everyone folllows this convention.  Why?

Because lisp programmers don't really look at parens (though beginning
lisp programmers might), they look at indentation.  Putting parentheses
on lines by themselves emphasizes them when they shouldn't be emphasized.

[Not to mention, it looks really crappy, since it doesn't follow the
traditional usage of parentheses in text.]

-Miles
-- 
`The suburb is an obsolete and contradictory form of human settlement'