Tabs -vs- Spaces: Tabs should have won.

[rantingrick]

On Jul 17, 1:54 pm, Ian Kelly <ian.g.ke... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 10:29 AM, rantingrick <rantingr... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I hate  vertical white-space. I follow Python style guide suggestions,
> > and then some! I hate when people insert spaces into code blocks and
> > function/method bodies. If you feel a space must be inserted then that
> > is a good clue you should be using a comment there instead. Vertical
> > breaks should only happen before and after classes, methods,
> > functions, groups of GLOBALS, groups of import statements. Think of
> > func/method bodies as paragraphs and classes as sections of a book.
> > Two vertical spaces between classes and one vertical space between
> > func/methods.
>
> You know, there is such a thing as a vertical tab.  If we're going to
> take your suggestion of mandating tabs (for greater freedom!), should
> we not follow it to its logical conclusion and mandate the usage of
> vertical tabs instead of multiple newlines?  Then everybody could
> choose for themselves how many lines they want a vertical tab to
> represent

On the face of it one might think vertical tabs are a good idea
however newlines work just fine. There is no reason for expanding
vertical whitespace to create readble code. If you can offer a good
reason i'm listening. Also be sure to post links where others have
requested the same.

Besides, horizontal tabs are tied closely to distinguishing code
blocks. Vertical tabs do not have such a benefit. Instead of vertical
tabs we need strict rules on vertical code formatting. I intend to
draft AND implement such rules very shortly.

> > It should be MANDATED. And these @holes who refuse to format their
> > code in a community standard will suffer the plague of syntax errors.
> > Who do these people think they are? Do they believe the rules do not
> > apply to them? I'll tell you who they are, they are F'ING format
> > criminals.
>
> I think I get it now.  Your idea of "freedom" is that anybody can do
> whatever they want as long as it's not illegal,

In a programming language yes. You're trying to draw correlations
between morality and law. In the arena of programming there is no such
thing as morality, only the law.

> and the ruling party
> just makes anything it doesn't like illegal.  In other words, a
> monarchy.

What do you think we have now, a democracy? Does "Benevolent?-Dictator-
For-Life" ring a bell?

I can tell you one thing for sure. In MY version of Python everyone
will have a voice. That does not mean that EVERYONE will make the
final decision but EVERYONE's voice will be equally important. I can
also tell you this. I will not hide under the coat tails of my dev
team , NO, i will mingle with the people on my comp.lang.rickpy list.
Mats (Ruby's creator) will answer questions on comp.lang.ruby so why
does Guido refuse to acknowledge us here on comp.lang.python?