On Mon, 2015-08-03 at 12:04 -0700, Tomer Barletz wrote:
> I see how it makes sense to add a tab to align with the previous line
> of code, as it will always look similar in all editors, no matter how
> their tab character is set up to be.
> However, adding more tabs will just mess up editors that are not set
> up with 8-space width tabs.
>
> Is this a bug in checkpatch.pl, or are we saying everyone should have
> their editor set to 8-spaces width tabs?
from Documentation/CodingStyle:
Chapter 1: Indentation
Tabs are 8 characters, and thus indentations are also 8 characters.
There are heretic movements that try to make indentations 4 (or even 2!)
characters deep, and that is akin to trying to define the value of PI to
be 3.
Rationale: The whole idea behind indentation is to clearly define where
a block of control starts and ends. Especially when you've been looking
at your screen for 20 straight hours, you'll find it a lot easier to see
how the indentation works if you have large indentations.
Now, some people will claim that having 8-character indentations makes
the code move too far to the right, and makes it hard to read on a
80-character terminal screen. The answer to that is that if you need
more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix
your program.
In short, 8-char indents make things easier to read, and have the added
benefit of warning you when you're nesting your functions too deep.
Heed that warning.
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