TABs (was: Waffling between Python and Ruby)

[Just van Rossum]

At 1:21 AM +0000 20-06-2000, Neil Hodgson wrote:
>> ... (In my MacPython IDE the user can choose
>> between the spaces and pixels as a visual size unit when setting the
>> indentation level...)
>
>   What has been the feedback on defining space in pixel terms?

Erm, I can't remember any...

>   The thing that stopped me doing it for Scintilla was that it would not
>work very well with the text magnification command. Maybe it should be
>defined in terms of x-width which doesn't change as much as the width of a
>space which varies a lot between fonts.

You mean the width of the character 'x'? Eek! (Besides, I don't see how the
x-width changes any less that the space-width across fonts...)

Why not use points, as in pointsize? A 10 pt font will look like 20 pt when
viewed at 200% magnification, so a 10 pt indent will look like 20 pt at
200%. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

(Due to historic narrowmindedness, a point is the same as a pixel under
MacOS, no matter what physical resolution the display has; I believe
Windows has (had?) the same problem, except that a pixel is 72/96th
points...)

Just