Whitespace is not visible. It is the absence of something that is visible. Whitespace should be used for the comfort of the reader, not to determine scope. Are you proposing that a " " character is more visible than "{}"? The fact I must quote it to make what I am discussing even apparent speaks for itself. I'm not arguing that indentation is bad, far from it. In fact, the flexibility of using indentation purely for readability, makes code more readable.