an immense accumulation of commodities

In working on indenting LOOP forms for Climacs (see the latest update here) I’ve come across a couple of competing ideas on how they should be formatted.

From cl-indent-patches.el (”Original version by rst” with patches by “salem” and “bromley” according to the header) we have the following “validation” (line numbers added by me):

 1 (loop for i from 0 below 2
 2       for j from 0 below 2
 3       when foo
 4         do (fubar)
 5            (bar)
 6            (moo)
 7         and collect cash
 8               into honduras
 9       else do ;; this is the body of the first else
10               ;; the body is ...
11               (indented to the above comment)
12               (ZMACS gets this wrong)
13            and do this
14            and do that
15            and when foo
16                  do the-other
17                  and cry
18       when this-is-a-short-condition do
19         (body code of the when)
20       when here's something I used to botch do (here is a body)
21                                                (rest of body indented same)
22       do
23    (exdented loop body)
24    (I'm not sure I like this but it's compatible)
25       when funny-predicate do ;; Here's a comment
26                               (body filled to comment))

The forms at issue are the DOs at 9-12 (and 25-6; compare with 20-21), 18-19 and 22-24. I would indent these like this:

 9       else do ;; this is the body of the first else
10              ;; the body is ...
11              (indented to the above comment)
12              (ZMACS gets this wrong)

(I see no reason for conforming to a dubious commenting style. But I’m interested to know why not doing so is “wrong”.)

18       when this-is-a-short-condition do
19                                        (body code of the when)

(I see no reason to special-case a “short-condition”, whatever that is.)

22       do
23         (exdented loop body)
24         (I'm not sure I like this but it's compatible)

(Exdenting is just gross - but “compatible” with what?)

Of course, I’m now doubting my own taste, so I’d be interested in what the Planet Lisp community thinks. Answers in the comments for summarising in a later edition…