To align, or not to align?

[Guy Steele]

> On Apr 18, 2019, at 1:30 PM, Kevin Bourrillion <kevinb at google.com> wrote:
> . . .
> Interesting!  I think this is exactly opposite to what's really going on.
> 
> Here's how people think of their program indentation. When I open a block, I increase it by N. When I close a block, I decrease it by N. Continuation line, maybe +2N. I move in and out based on what's happening locally.  However, I have no care at all for what the current absolute value of that indentation is.  Maybe it's 10, maybe it's 14, whatever; that value is irrelevant to me, it simply emerges from how nested I happen to be.
> 
> Indentation stripping is precisely what *preserves* that independence.

I agree with this analysis.  Much of what are debating is how best to define and support such indentation stripping (if at all), and what controls the user should have, and how “readable" and “intuitive” those controls are.