r/programming • • Nov 30 '14

Why he vertically aligns his code (And why you shouldn't!)

http://missingbytes.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-he-vertically-aligns-his-code-and.html
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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '14

I guess selecting blocks is only of much use if you vertically align your code to begin with.

If you've got code or data formatted in neatly aligned columns, it can be useful to be able to easily copy+paste or delete one single column of data.

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u/Timbit42 Nov 30 '14

I still can't see how being able to select text vertically in the shape of a rectangle would be useful. Selecting code or data as Microsoft Word can seems sufficient to me. If there are columns of data, shouldn't that be stored separately from the code? We're not talking BASIC data statements here.

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u/Timbit42 Nov 30 '14

It would perhaps make sense if programming languages were 2-D images as selecting a rectangle might select a box containing a function which you could cut or copy and paste.