Style Matters

Programming style isn't just about how you use whitespace, or how you indent your code. When a language gives you the flexibility to do a task in multiple ways (and C++ certainly does), the word "style" takes on other meanings that have as much to do with your choice of algorithm as they do with where you place your curly braces. A language like C++ allows you to endlessly reinvent even the simplest of functions, trading off various levels of readability, efficiency, maintainability, and ease of use. Jack Crenshaw has been experiencing this principle firsthand lately, as he has been building a library of vector and matrix math classes, and getting lots of helpful suggestions from readers.

Posted by Kevin Carlson at 12:31 PM  Permalink