It could work by adding a new alignment tab character, like & in TeX. TeX tables look like

    name & value & comment \\
    long name here & 1 & one\\
    x & 2 & two \\

and the columns line up at the & characters by adding suitable whitespace. Imagine some control character that you could insert in source code:

    next&Ancestor &= current->next;
    previous&Ancestor &= null;

and the corresponding parts would line up in consecutive blocks, like elastic tab stops but even inside words by stretching the existing whitespace around the words.