On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 09:43:40AM +0800, Isaac To wrote: [snip] > H> That's because the terminal settings are b0rked. I personally delete > H> all programs that cannot cut-n-paste without messing up tabs and > H> spaces. Unfortunately, this happens a lot on the Winbloxe desktop at > H> work. > > Which terminal do you use that do not convert all the tabs into spaces? > Personally I won't cut-and-paste from the terminal when programming.
Hmm, you're right. I just tested it from xterm, and it doesn't work quite the way I thought it did. I'm pretty sure xterm used to let you copy tabs properly, but that might be a very old version way back when. (Or perhaps just my imagination.) > H> For personal pet projects, I use 2 spaces per nesting level. Some > H> people think that's Pure Evil(tm), although I fully agree with you > H> about wasting screen real estate in 80 columns (yes, I am one of > H> those freaks who insist that all code must not have lines longer than > H> 79 characters). > > I believe Linus has a point here... 8 spaces per indentation level keeps you > honest, since you can't put a whole crowd of things into a single function. Well, that's a whole 'nother can of worms. I firmly believe that all functions longer than one printed page (approx 48 lines or so) are inherently broken and must be re-written. Nevertheless, I find 8-space indentation too wasteful, 4-space indentation too cumbersome to type, and 1-space indentation unreadable. So I stick with 2. But I'm OK with 4 if it helps others read the code. > On the evil side, I had seen people who insist on using 1 space per > indentation level. [snip] Yes, that's Pure Evil(tm). Just one step away from the atrocious inconsistent indentation. (Believe me, I've seen *professional* programmers insert random amounts of space just so they satisfy the law of indentation, but it's completely inconsistent across blocks. Very annoying to read.) T -- "I'm not childish; I'm just in touch with the child within!"