Blocks instead of Brackets - caffeine-suite/caffeine-script GitHub Wiki

This is one of CaffeineScript's primary strategies for eliminating bracket-matching.

Related: Complete Indent-Block Parsing

An indent-block is a sequence of lines in code with the same number of spaces at the start of the line. (With one exception: sub-blocks, see below.)

Lines with no spaces at the start are sometimes referred to as "at the root" (... 'of the tree').

Example:

This line is not in an indent-block because it has no spaces.
  This line starts an indent-block.
  This one is in the middle of the block.
  This line is at the end of the indent-block.

This line is back at the "root."
  This line starts the second indent-block.

The 'indent' of a line is the number of spaces at its start. A line with more 'indentation' has more spaces.

I'll always use the word 'spaces' to talk about blocks and their indents, but tabs are accepted too. However, CaffeineScript has a special limitation: all your indents must either be all-spaces OR all-tabs. You can't mix them. Why? Because both are invisible or 'white-spaces' - and it can lead to terrible confusion for a language which uses the count of tabs or spaces to determine indent-levels. Don't worry, the compiler will make it clear if you mix them.

I highly recommend, however, that you always use spaces and never tabs. It's a personal preference. I like my code to look the same no matter what editor or console I view it in. Since tabs can be interpreted differently in different views, tab-based indents don't present consistently in all cases. It just makes it harder for me to read the code.

Blocks can have blocks inside them. They are sometimes referred to as "sub", "nested" or "child" blocks. A sub-block has at least one more space or tab at the beginning of the line than its "parent" or "enclosing" block. Sub-blocks are considered to be "in" or "a part of" their parent block.

Example:

This is at the root level.
  This is in the first block.
  This is too.
    This is in a sub-block.
    Still in the sub-block
  Back to the first block.

Back to the root.
  Starting the second block.
    Starting a sub-block in the second-block.
  Back to the second block.

Back to the root.

• String Literals
• Object Literals
• Array Literals
• Comments
• Function Invocation
• Comprehensions and Iteration
• Control Structures

Div
  'Click this link to learn about an awesome language: '
  A href: 'http://CafScript.com', 'CafScript'

log ""
  The rest of this indented area is in the string.
  Even this: '"" """'
  Because it is indented, almost nothing needs to be escaped.

log []
  1
  2
  3

##
  All indented lines after a double ## are escaped!
  All characters are legal, including any sequence of: / * #

This is github's CoffeeScript syntax highlighting. It's close enough to help, I think, but please excuse when it is wrong for CaffeineScript. I look forward to github syntax highlighting support for CaffeineScript! If you, like me, want to see custom syntax highlighting supported on GitHub, contribute to this GitHub conversation.

A surprising advantage (to me) of going 100% with indented blocks is the code-collapsing feature of editors like SublimeText work perfectly for everything. Not only can you collapse code-blocks, but you can collapse string-blocks and comment blocks with equal ease.