tabs do WHAT?

[Thomas Hamelryck]

Remco Gerlich <scarblac-spamtrap at pino.selwerd.nl> wrote:

: 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.

I _do_ use pindent.py, but not always. It's not very convenient.

: 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 are not getting my point. I _can_ live with python, even with the burdon
of obligatory indentation. I only start complaining about it again when I see
a newbie being buried with "obligatory indentation is the greatest invention 
since sliced bread, every body loves it, if you don't love it you're stupid" 
messages. 
Also note that I am not opposed to indentation itself of course. It makes programs a 
lot more readable. But _obligatory, overly rigid_ indentation makes your programs
less readable. The fact that I cannot do the following in python is a good 
illustration:

glBegin(GL_LINES)
    glVertex3f(self.x1, self.y1, self.z1)
    glVertex3f(self.x2, self.y2, self.z2)
glEnd()

Not to mention the weird error messages when you end up with a stray white space in
a python program.

: C++ is a good example of an abomination.

C++'s small user base as compared to python's is probably due to the lack
of forced indentation. :-)

Cheers,

---
Thomas Hamelryck    Institute of Molecular and Structural Biology
Aarhus University   Gustav Wieds Vej 10C
DK-8000 Aarhus C    Denmark