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Between IDEs and other tools that autoformat code (ie gofmt[1])and languages that use significant whitespace, I wouldn't say programmers necessarily consider those things much these days.

Factoring might be a better example- picking the most convenient order for subroutine arguments, choosing how to bring together redundant segments of code, how to best use language constructs to express the problem. Ultimately I think it's difficult to draw a direct comparison, though- in my opinion, the similarities between graphic art and programming are rather abstract.

[1] http://golang.org/cmd/gofmt/



> [...] picking the most convenient order for subroutine arguments, [...]

Interestingly, this gets much more important in a language with currying.


It's also important in concatenative languages- the choice of argument order can easily make the difference between elegant function composition which "flows" and a twisty maze of "stack noise".




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