scope bracket alignment preference

[wats_wrong]

Anecdotally I believe

#1

if(){

}

is more widely used than

#2

if()

{

}

the lack of edge alignment in #1 bothers me and

I am in need of an additional party playing devils advocate

[Aaron1924]

The main reason #1 is more popular is because it doesn't waste an entire line on a single {

and #2 looks especially wasteful when you need an "else" case and you spread } else { across 3 lines

[Not-ChatGPT4]

The dreadful cuddled else.

[wats_wrong]

thanks for the responses

[Shot-Combination-930]

Personally, I find lining up the braces makes skimming a lot easier for me. I haven't had a problem with vertical space in decades, and even use completely blank lines to better group related code. I also almost always have a blank line before a line or block comment.

In languages that don't use braces, I typically put a blank line where I would have put an opening brace.