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If you want to spend an amusing evening, try googling "indent style k&r vs allman" or some such search terms. Especially interesting are peoples' comments on why they prefer one above the other. Here's one such interesting page on Grant Skinner's blog: http://gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/11/curly_braces_to.html. It's not something where everyone is content with their position and their favored style in a "live and let live" manner. No, not only are they right, but consequently everyone else is just wrong. And since everyone else is wrong, they must be converted!

Well, I don't want to go there, but I would like to plainly and simply state my case why I prefer the K&R indent style and let it go at that. I'm in the minority according to some sites which feature polls, like this one: http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2009/04/10/the-only-correct-indent-style/. The reason why I'm throwing in my two cents is not to convince anyone, but because I have a good reason in mind that I didn't see mentioned anywhere else.

The usual main reason given for preferring K&R style is that it saves vertical space. I'll go along with that. But I'd like to add this other reason, the one that prompted me to write this, and I think it's profound (are you ready?): In K&R style, every line ends with something. A line of code either ends with a semi-colon, or it ends with a curly brace that leads in to a function or other similar structure.

In Allman style, a line of code can just end in... nothing! And a line of code that doesn't end in something just doesn't look finished to me, in the same way that an English sentence without a period looks unfinished! Really! Yeah, I know, the curly brace isn't really ending something, but rather is beginning a new block of code, but in my mind, it does finish off the line and satisfies "justice."

I don't program for a living, it's just a fun thing, and so the only one I have to please (or answer to) is myself. I'm the one that has to come back to my code to look at it again, and modify it, so I'm pretty well settled in my choice. My eyes like to look at K&R style.