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sculpin/source/_posts/2025-07-04.md

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+---
+date: 2025-07-04
+title: Avoiding indentation
+permalink: /daily/2025/07/04/avoiding-indentation
+---
+
+A guide that I use when writing or reviewing code is to avoid or minimise indentation.
+
+Usually, the nearer to the left of the file the text is, the better.
+
+If you had this code:
+
+```php
+<?php
+
+function doSomething() {
+  if ($a === TRUE) {
+    if ($b === 'banana') {
+      if ($c > 3) {
+        // Do something...
+     }
+    }
+  }
+}
+```
+
+What if you refactored it to use early returns and remove some indentation?
+
+```php
+<?php
+
+function doSomething() {
+  if ($a !== TRUE) {
+    return;
+  }
+
+  if ($b !== 'banana') {
+    return;
+  }
+
+  if ($c <= 3) {
+    return;
+  }
+
+  // Do something...
+}
+```
+
+This is easier for me to read and review.
+
+I can keep track of there I am in the function as it is more linear. Especially if the code within each condition block is more complex.
+
+## Indentation in CSS
+
+CSS now supports nesting, similar to Sass and other preprocessors, so you can write CSS like this:
+
+```css
+.menu {
+  ul {
+    li {
+      a {
+        color: red;
+      }
+    }
+  }
+}
+```
+
+I usually find this harder to search, particularly if a pre-processor like Sass is being used, so I avoid it as much as possible.
+
+I only really use it to style pseudo-selectors like `:hover` and `:focus` to element.
+
+## Indentation in Nix
+
+In Nix, these two examples achieve the same thing:
+
+```nix
+services.gammastep = {
+  enable = true;
+  provider = "geoclue2";
+};
+
+services.gammastep.enable = true;
+services.gammastep.provider = "geoclue2";
+```
+
+In long files, it can be hard to keep track of what service you're configuring once it has been indented.
+
+Whilst it adds some duplication, I've recently favoured the second approach in my code.
+
+## Here's the thing
+
+There needs to be some indentation in code to allow for functions, conditions, loops, etc.
+
+But, whichever language I'm writing, I usually aim for no more than two levels of indentation in a file.
+
+If code is indented further, I'll try or suggest an alternative approach to reduce the indentation - which usually results in cleaner code overall.