Tabs are evil, end of discussion. (Re: Tabs versus Spaces in Source Code)

[Andy Sy]

Harry George wrote:

> This has been discussed repeatedly, and the answer is "If you only
> work alone, never use anyone else's code and no one ever uses your
> codes, then do as you please.  Otherwise use tab-is-4-spaces."
> 
> When you do Agile Programming with people using emacs, vim, nedit,
> xedit, wordpad, eclipse, and who knows what else, the 4-spaces rule is
> necessary for survival.
> 
> The reason is simple: People get confused, and accidentally get the
> wrong tab indents when they move among editors or among settings on
> the same editor.  In most languages this is an irritation, requiring
> some cleanup.  In Python it is a disaster requiring re-inventing the
> coded algorithms.

1. Tabs as 8 spaces just take up way too much horizontal
   space, so you can't use 8-space tabs...

2. BUT... you can't use any other value (not even 4)... !!

   WHY??

   Because if you do, you will screw up display using /something
   as basic as cat, less, more (and many other unix utilities
   where the historical assumption that tabs are 8 spaces
   is hardcoded)!


DOES ANYONE NEED ANY REASON MORE COMPLICATED THAN THE ABOVE TO
JUST *NOT* USE TABS??


Yet ANOTHER proof that tabs are evil:

3. If tabs weren't around, we wouldn't have all these
   time-wasting threads on tabs vs. spaces, or on how many
   spaces a tab should represent.


Tabs were an unnecessary Rube Goldberg invention misguidedly
carried over from the typewriter era.  They are the appendix
of text editors.  Just because they're there doesn't necessarily
mean they serve any (even remotely) useful purpose.


-- 
It's called DOM+XHR and it's *NOT* a detergent!