Tabs versus Spaces in Source Code

[Sybren Stuvel]

Duncan Booth enlightened us with:
> That is true so far as it goes, but equally if your editor inserts a
> tab character when you press the tab key it is as broken as though
> it inserted a backspace character when you press the backspace key.
> In both of these cases you have an operation (move to next tabstop,
> move back one space) and an ascii control character which is
> intended to reflect that operation when rendering the file to an
> output device.

That all depends on the setting of your editor. After all, a TAB
character could be the proper control character for the operation
'move to the next tabstop'.

> An editor should be capable of letting you create or modify files
> containing control characters without gratuitously corrupting them,
> but the keys should perform the expected operations

I agree with that.

> not insert the characters.

But not with that, since it is contradicting. "Inserting the
characters" could very well be the same as "performing the expected
operations".

Sybren
-- 
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? 
                                             Frank Zappa