Format your code when posting online

Format your code when you are posting it online

Warning, semirant incoming

There are multiple ways to post code online. And most of them should be banned!

Sample code shown in here is copied+pasted from Dot Net Perls

 

The worst(tm) possible way to paste code

This award goes to anyone that takes a screenshot from badly formatted code and pastes that screenshot to forum/blog/IM.

Why this is bad:

• It is hard to read the code (neither formatting nor folding)
• It is hard to copy+paste code
• It is hard to directly call that code

 

Bad way to paste code

This award goes to anyone that takes a screenshot from formatted code and pastes that screenshot to forum/blog/IM.

Why this is bad:

• It is hard to copy+paste code
• It is hard to directly call that code

 

Horrible way to paste code

This award goes to anyone that just dumps code to plain textinput. Output is then assumed to be regular text.

using System;

class Program { public static int Fibonacci(int n) { int a = 0; int b = 1; // In N steps compute Fibonacci sequence iteratively. for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) { int temp = a; a = b; b = temp + b; } return a; }

static void Main() { for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++) { Console.WriteLine(Fibonacci(i)); } } }

Why this is bad:

• It is hard to read the code (neither formatting nor folding)
• It is hard to directly call that code

 

Mediocre way to paste code

This award goes to anyone that pastes code with folding but does NOT use color coding.

using System;

class Program
{
    public static int Fibonacci(int n)
    {
        int a = 0;
        int b = 1;
        // In N steps compute Fibonacci sequence iteratively.
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
        {
            int temp = a;
            a = b;
            b = temp + b;
        }
        return a;
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(Fibonacci(i));
        }
    }
}

Why this is bad:

• It is not easy to read the code
• It is hard to directly call that code

 

Good way to paste code online

This award goes to anyone that pastes code with proper formatting and folding to forum/blog/IM.

using System;

class Program
{
    public static int Fibonacci(int n)
    {
        int a = 0;
        int b = 1;
        // In N steps compute Fibonacci sequence iteratively.
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
        {
            int temp = a;
            a = b;
            b = temp + b;
        }
        return a;
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(Fibonacci(i));
        }
    }
}

Why this is bad:

• It is hard to directly call that code

 

Better way to paste code online

This award goes to anyone that pastes code to gist (or similar service) and links that to the post.

 

Why I am complaining about this

It is sad to see so many blogs, forum posts etc. where the original poster has NOT used extra 30 seconds to make his/her code more readable and/or useable.

Fortunately there are some services that have taken many extra steps to make sure that everything is super smooth. Like Rust Playground which has folding, formatting and gist all build-in. Amazing job!