Before injecting a massive singularity into our code archaeology, I
would like to better understand the passionate objection to tabs. Let me
explain my perspective: I use a crude, old-fashioned editor called
emacs. My tabs are configured at 4 space intervals. With this setting, I
almost never have a problem reading the existing code. So who is having
problems and why? Do other people's IDEs silently bulk reformat the
code? Can that behavior be disabled? Could we be satisfied with the
following simple rules, which used to satisfy us nine years ago:
1) Ladies and gentlemen, set your tabs to four spaces.
2) Don't bulk reformat other people's code.
I hope we are not headed into a religious war.
Regards,
-Rick
Myrna van Lunteren wrote:
On 5/31/06, Rodrigo Madera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Why do you all hate tabs sooo much??
On 5/31/06, Bernt M. Johnsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I heartily agree. We definitely need an enforced standard on
> this.
[snip]
> And, we should definitely get rid of the tabs.
>
>
I personally can happily accept whatever standard is decided on, and
I'll admit I like making tabs. :-)
But, when looking at code, you cannot tell whether you see tabs or
spaces unless you actually scroll over the blank bits with a cursor
key...
Also, in most editors tabs are configurable to 'mean' (be represented)
varying number of spaces, and thus, open to interpretation. It gets
even worse when you think of using IDEs - these automatically create
the idents for you based. Some tools will convert tabs into spaces
when you perform cut-and-paste...
All in all, when working with a group of people, it's easy to end up
with a mishmash of tabs and spaces and especially with having a mix of
tabs and spaces on the same line is very confusing.
Settling on the non-configurable 'space' seems cleanest.
Myrna
