I hate you all

[Michael Torrie]

On 04/05/2013 11:36 PM, Timothy Madden wrote:
> I guess a discussion like this thread is the price to be paid for 
> relying solely on white space to delimit code blocks, like the python 
> syntax does.

I've always been taught that in Python using tabs, particularly in the
way that you use them (which, by the way, is the default way vim uses
them when in C++ mode) is fraught with difficulty.  So years ago I
dropped in c couple of lines in my vimrc file to use spaces instead of
tabs and use the PEP standard of 4 spaces.  Have never had any problem.

As for your problems, perhaps instead of coming on the list with a
poorly-thought-out subject line, and desire to simply argue, perhaps you
could run your code through a reformatter that would translate your tabs
into spaces using the tab stop that you desired.  Open the file in vim,
enter the following commands:

set sw=4
set ts=8
set et
set softtabstop=4
set ai
:retab

Then save the file.  Now it's pep-formatted with spaces and no tabs.
Problem solved.  Yes it doesn't address your concerns, but it is the
recommended solution for Python given the difficulties in mixing tabs
and spaces and different people's definition of tabs.