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[Seebs]

On 2010-11-02, Grant Edwards <invalid at invalid.invalid> wrote:
> True, but the fact that diff has an option that for Python sources
> will produces useless results doesn't seem like a valid indictment of
> Python's syntax and semantics.

The question is *why* diff has that option.

The answer is because whitespace changes (spaces to tabs, different
tab stops, etcetera) are an extremely common failure mode, such that
it's quite common for files to end up with unintentional whitespace
changes.

This, in turn, is why there are so many tools to automatically fix up
whitespace type issues, such as cb/indent for C, auto-indentation for
many languages (including stuff like XML) features in editors, and so
on -- because it's a common problem.

-s
-- 
Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed.  Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam at seebs.net
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