Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@xxxxxx> writes: >> [...] about the using "strbuf_addf(line, "%7s" , "-");" or >> "strbuf_addstr(line, " -");". [...] >> >> Why I prefer more of the former that is because, for the single line, >> it's more readable I think. > > I strongly disagree. Using a format requires the reader to interpret a > `printf()` format, to remember (if they ever knew) the rules about padding > with `%<number>s` formats, and then to satisfy themselves that the result > is correct. Both "more readable" and "cognitive load" are quite subjective. FWIW, I have a slight preference to the former because I do not have to count the whitespaces to figure out at which column the construct is trying to align to. Most of the time, however, I may not deeply care if the thing is aligned exactly, and " -" might be easier to scan and getting alarmed by seeing "%7s" to wonder if there is something unusual going on. When I am reading not for finding out the precise output format but for general correctness, bunch of unknown number of spaces followed by a dash might be easier to see. But once you know the language, "%7s" is not so alarming, and it does make it easier to see both for casual scanning and for counting columns. It also is likely that those who know the language would make more efficient developers to fix and/or enhance the code, so I prefer to optimize the code for them.
