Indentation style...

[Ian Parker]

In article <th7e7j4ag7r277 at news.supernews.com>, John Roth
<johnroth at ameritech.net> writes
>
>"Tim Peters" <tim.one at home.com> wrote in message
>news:mailman.990993520.25620.python-list at python.org...
>
>> Tabs interpreted as screen distance from the margin can mean that, but
>> "round up to a multiple of N columns" tabs are only useful provided
>everyone
>> agrees on a single value for N.  I expect tabs in that sense were really
>> introduced as a cheap-ass compression gimmick, back in the days when the
>> percentage of your disk space devoted to plain text files still fit in the
>> dynamic range of a 32-bit float <wink>.
>>
>
>Not quite. Tabs go back to the old hardware typewriter. On one of those
>beasts,
>a tabstop was actually a little hardware clip you put on the back of the
>carriage (or
>carriage track) to stop it when you wanted to do column alignment. The
>original
>teletypes picked it up, and then the 8 column convention came in because
>teletype
>operators didn't want to keep changing the tab settings for every
>transmission. Besides
>it enabled early tty drivers to save *transmission* time by changing runs of
>spaces
>to tabs. This was important when a fast line was around ten characters per
>second
>or so.
>
>I thoroughly agree that tabs are archaic, and should be quietly put to rest.
>
>John Roth
>>
>
>

I fondly remember my old typewriter with its tabulation keys, and retain
a sneaking affection for the tabs.  I have, however, given in with
regard to Python and now use spaces only.

Regards

Ian
-- 
Ian Parker