[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> On Sun, 24 Jun 2001, Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
>
> > That just leads to formatting problems because people don't understand
> > that. If you must have tabs, they should be the same as the indention
> > level, not some factor of the indention level. This doesn't have to be
> > complicated. One tab == one indention level.
>
> I'm not sure I understand how you reached that conclusion, but this is
> what causes all the curent problems ( and the reason for people to
> consider tabs as "evil" ).
>
> Tab size is 8 - or at least used to be before the idea that you can
> "configure" this. What's "evil" is the fact that some editors allow you to
> change the size of the tab.
>
> In a text you can have multiple indentation levels, and it's true that on
> some typewriters you can use the TAB key to move to the next indentation
> level ( the same as you use ^A to move to beginning of line in some
> editors ). That doesn't mean the tab ascii code will have multiple sizes
> ( and change based on the position in the text). It just mean that stupid
> programmers decided it's easier to add a panel that changes the number of
> spaces equivalent with TAB instead of implementing code that uses spaces
> for indentations < 8, and replaces 8 spaces with a tab symbol.
>
> And because someone decides to "extend" a ( de-facto ) standard, later on
> we have to abandon the standard and say it's "evil". That happens very
> often, and we're so used with it that now it's almost a habit.
>
> Costin
The way it always boils down on all of the projects I've worked on
is that spaces always look right no matter what. Tab characters
have the potential to cause problems.
On the projects where we did not dictate that all developers should
use a specific editor, we did dictate no tabs in source. Only
spaces were allowed. This made sure that we didn't spend days
criticizing each others' choices in editors and could instead
write code.
That could be the reason so many people gravitate towards arguing
for no tab characters. It's not like the file space they save is
as critical as it used to be 15 years ago. :)
I personally don't care. I've learned to read it with tabs right or
wrong. It looks just as cryptic to me as K&R style bracing and I
can read that just fine. ;)
-Paul Speed
