Why is there so much poorly indented code out there?

Posted by dsimcha on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by dsimcha
Published on 2010-03-18T18:55:21Z Indexed on 2010/03/18 19:01 UTC
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indentation

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best-practices

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coding-style

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readability

The more I browse the code to open source projects in languages that aren't Python, the more I realize that it seems a lot of programmers don't believe in proper indentation. (I won't mention any projects specifically to avoid having anyone take this question too personally.) Usually code is indented, but in a way just different enough from the standard style that it drives me crazy, especially in old/crufty code. I've noticed that when I write in C-like languages, I tend to indent correctly as religiously as when I'm writing in Python, with the exception of debugging code that I actually want to stick out like a sore thumb. Given how easy it is with a modern IDE to fix incorrect indentation, what are some rationales for not religiously keeping indentation in sync with braces?

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