>>>>> On Sat, 6 Jun 2015, Duncan wrote: >> *If* we should agree on using tabs, then we should also standardise >> the tab width. Using the same rules for indenting and whitespace as >> for ebuilds (i.e., tab stops every four positions) suggests itself: >> https://devmanual.gentoo.org/ebuild-writing/file-format/index.html#indenting-and-whitespace
> (Somewhat) More seriously, standardizing the tab size defeats the > purpose, letting people decide for themselves, particularly when > it's to be the declared horizontal spacing standard in a file such > as this, where mixed spaces and tabs can be avoided, so someone's > personal setting shouldn't be mixed up by someone using spaces > instead It plays a role when at the same time there is a policy about the line width. For example, the devmanual has this (about _ebuilds_, not about metadata.xml): # Where possible, try to keep lines no wider than 80 positions. # A 'position' is generally the same as a character — tabs are four # positions wide, and multibyte characters are just one position wide. This would make no sense with the width of a tab being arbitrary. > (and if it is, the non-standard spaces in place of tabs is simply > much more obvious, allowing easier detection /due/ to the > non-standardized tabsize, and replacing with tabs as appropriate). I don't understand this part. We would have either spaces or tabs, but not both. And e.g. Emacs can highlight tabs (with whitespace-mode) so there's no problem seeing them. > But IMO it's all simply bikeshedding, regardless. Maybe. But standardising it could simplify life when updating metadata files with a script. Ulrich
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