If this were to do with the number of spaces...
...used by one coder, and the number of spaces used by another coder, then I can see how it would relate to quality, and hopefully then salary.
Using less spaces either means:-
* That the programmer is putting code into procedures rather than having lots of nesting, which increases the overall number of spaces used
* Or the programmer uses no indenting at all. I suspect programmers that don't use any formatting aren't likely to write long programs, so if an automated leading space count were carried out on a typical programmer's output then (all other things being equal) the ratio should be fairly indicative of the quality of code contained therein.
(45 years of coding experience: started off with systems that printed out on wide music rule paper - however IIRC the GEC 4080 only allowed about 80 columns of that to be used)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
