Tim Harig <user...@ilthio.net> writes: > Python is the only language that I know that *needs* to specify tabs > versus spaces since it is the only language I know of which uses > whitespace formating as part of its syntax and structure.
You need to get out more. Miranda, Gofer, Haskell, F#, make(1), and many others, all use indentation to indicate structure; YAML isn't a programming language, but it also uses indentation to indicate structure, as do a number of wiki markup languages; there are also representations of Lisp S-expressions which use indentation instead of parentheses. > Mixed usage may be annoying in other languages; but, it breaks Python. I disagree. The Haskell '98 report specifies (correctly) that tabs are every eight columns, and a tab moves to the next tab stop. Python makes the same specification; it's just the users who actually want to stamp out tabs. Flamebait: it's not the tabs that cause the problem: it's that some people are under the mistaken impression that the position of tab stops in text files is a matter for local preference. -- [mdw] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list