Why do so many mathematicians format code so poorly? [closed]

Posted by marcog on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by marcog
Published on 2009-04-18T20:10:23Z Indexed on 2010/04/04 8:53 UTC
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Filed under:

math

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indentation

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coding-style

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code-formatting

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language-agnostic

I have done a fair amount of programming together with mathematicians. Now I am even teaching some high school kids coming from a mathematics background how to program. Most of these people format their code so hideously it's hard to believe. I've even worked with and taught mathematicians who will fight the auto-indenter!

Why is this so common amongst mathematicians?

BTW, this is one reason I have started teaching Python. Yet still they find ways other than indentation to produce whacked coding styles!

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