[Evolution] Issue with formatting of gconf files.

[les <hlhowell pacbell net>]

Hi, guys,

        This is an expression of dismay of the current practices I see
developing.  You may or may not agree, but at least consider the long
term implications.  

        One of my pet peeves is the lack of formatting on autogenerated files.
Microsoft is one of the worst perpetrators, but the poor practice has
begun to invade all forms of programs and designs.  
        
        Lack of formatting makes sorting issues not just difficult, but as
programs are copied, and dead code fragments are left in but commented
out, the code gets really messed up.  If a code fragment is dead, remove
it.  If a setting is not used, remove it.  Leaving these things in place
is poor practice, unprofessional and collects garbage.

        HTML code is bad to begin with due to its fundamental formatting, but
leaving out linefeeds, tabs, and spaces just makes it worse.  Would you
like reading a book with no punctuation, no paragraphs, and lack of
structure?  Yet I see lots of that kind of documentation, and even more
code like that.  This is not furthering the profession, nor is it
helpful.

With that said, here is a snippet from the gconf stuff for evolution:

Directly from the file:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<group uid="1162801071 10728 17 localhost localdomain" name="On This
Computer" base_uri="local:" readonly="no"><source
uid="1162801071 10728 18 localhost localdomain" name="Personal"
uri="file:///home/lesh/.evolution/addressbook/local/system"
relative_uri="system"><properties><property name="pilot-sync"
value="true"/><property name="use-in-contacts-calendar"
value="0"/></properties></source><source
uid="1163129951 18548 0 localhost localdomain" name="Personal2"
relative_uri="1163129951 18548 0 localhost localdomain"><properties><property name="completion" 
value="true"/><property name="remember_password" value="false"/></properties></source></group>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How many of you can read and understand this bit of code?

I especially dislike the ########## ##### # localhost localdomain
filename.  This has no significance to the job being accomplished.  As
much as I rail against "self documenting code", this is just beyond
useless.  It smacks of trying to use obfuscation for security, which has
been proven over and over to not aid security.  Other than that it has
no value, no significance and adds no real value to the process being
described.

But putting an entire page of a book of code in one line is
unforgivable.  I write converters between systems, changing hardware,
software platforms and instrument capabilities.  I would be embarrassed
to show something like this to one of my customers, moreover it would
probably result in my never being hired again.

Long ago, when BASIC first raised its head, this kind of stuff was done
because the systems were slow to interpret text, so leaving out
punctuation, spacing, comments and so forth made the program run faster.
This may be true for HTML code, but todays computers run at least
1,200,000,000 times faster than they did back then. 

        This kind of work is horrible to support.  

        Cleaned up just a bit, the use of the code becomes clearer.  But it
also uses two forms of HTML controls, both the <header>...</header> and
the <header />.  Both are of course legal and useful in some contexts,
but it is usually preferable to maintain consistency.

Check out how it looks with just a bit of formatting.

I don't know if the formatted code will run or not, but if not, the
interpreter needs a visit.  Good practices should always help make the
code understandable.

Edited
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<group 
 uid="1162801071 10728 17 localhost localdomain" 
 name="On This Computer" base_uri="local:" readonly="no">
    <source 
     uid="1162801071 10728 18 localhost localdomain" 
     name="Personal"
     uri="file:///home/lesh/.evolution/addressbook/local/system" 
     relative_uri="system">
        <properties>
            <property name="pilot-sync" value="true"/>
            <property name="use-in-contacts-calendar" value="0"/>
        </properties>
    </source>

    <source 
     uid="1163129951 18548 0 localhost localdomain" 
     name="Personal2" 
     relative_uri="1163129951 18548 0 localhost localdomain">
        <properties>
           <property name="completion" value="true"/>
           <property name="remember_password" value="false"/>
        </properties>
    </source>

</group>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you read all the way to here, thank you.  If you disagree, that is
OK, but remember that one day you will have to support code written in
one block that is over 3000 characters long (I have already seen that on
some web pages.)

Regards,
Les H