Description Maxime Daniel 2005-11-02 10:28:17 EST

Some developers consider the following as bad practice:

while (goAhead)
  doSomething();

Rationale: it is much easier then to mistakenly add further statements out of
the loop, like into:

while (goAhead)
  doSomething();
  doMore(); // indented, but NOT into the loop

than if braces are systematically added, like into:
while (goAhead) {
  doSomething();
}
  doMore(); // clearly out of the loop

A warning could be issued to help enforce coding policies that demand the use of
explicit braces for all applicable control structures. This would at least
include if (and else), while, do and for. The cases of a switch should probably
be left out of this, given the typical fall through pattern.