tabs do WHAT?

[Remco Gerlich]

Thomas Hamelryck wrote in comp.lang.python:
> Tim Peters <tim_one at email.msn.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> : like-sex-is-great-but-should-not-be-part-of-life-ly y'rs  - tim
> 
> Good analogy, actually. Sex is great, but should never be forced
> on you.

Noone is forcing Python on you...

> BTW, people here seem to have adopted the idea that if you don't like
> a particular feature of a language, you should abandon it (e.g., "You 
> don't like indentation? Use Perl!"). But many languages have evolved 
> exactly this way: users criticize, complain, praize and whine, thereby
> influencing the shape of the languge in question.

And many of them have become abominations. Python is over a decade old.
Whitespace indentation is an important feature, that makes a lot of sense,
and that makes code much clearer, but is different from other languages.
If you don't like that, there is pindent.py.

That just can't change anymore and won't, so if you really can't live with
it, "use another language" is sane advice, isn't it?

> You can find a very 
> nice description of this process with respect to C++ in "The Evolution 
> of C++ : Language Design in the Marketplace of Ideas", by Jim Waldo 
> (Editor), James Waldo (Editor).

C++ is a good example of an abomination.


-- 
Remco Gerlich,  scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl
 10:12am  up 62 days, 16:17,  6 users,  load average: 2.90, 3.40, 3.62