Guido's intuition (was Re: typetesting, adaptation, typeclasses, ...)

[John J. Lee]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, Tim Peters wrote:
[...]
> What the Python developers do get testy about is living with Guido's
> seemingly inconsistent demand that Python code use 4-space indents with no
> hard tabs, C code use 8-space hard-tab indents.  Oddly enough, the more
> intelligent of us agree with him, but nobody can explain why <wink>.

Intelligence here is as judged by preferred indentation style, I presume?

Hypothesis:

Long C type names -->

    tendency to use short variable names -->

    tendency to write too much on one line, or use too many indentation
      levels, on those lines containing no type names -->

    increase indentation to counter this tendency?

Of course, the 8 character tab width is axiomatic.

(I confess I did debate the indentation here, and the positioning of the
arrows)

Deadly serious,


John