OT: This Swift thing

[Rustom Mody]

On Thursday, June 5, 2014 8:42:53 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Jun 2014 05:56:07 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:
> > A random thread (I guess one can find more):
> > https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2012-March/621993.html

> I don't understand why you posted this link. I wasn't questioning Terry's 
> description of the problem, that his mail client eats tabs. Thunderbird 
> doesn't eat tabs for me, but I believe Terry when he says it eats them 
> for him. I was questioning his assertion that there is no standard way to 
> render a tab character.

In the context of Mark Harris saying that people around him dont like
python because of tabs getting garbled in forum-transits, you made the
(rather extreme) statement:

> >> Rendering it as a picture of a banana dancing on the ceiling
> >> would be silly and non- standard. Not rendering it at all is even
> >> more stupid and less justified.

I was pointing out that that behavior is not unknown even on this very list.

Now whether thunderbird's behavior is straight buggy or compliant with (some
bizarre) standard is another question - for a thunderbird list I hope!

JFTR: For me this reason is miserable.
Communication with others is important.
Visual pleasantness¹ for oneself is more important.
Which is why I advocate unicode in program text even though
- there will be new breakages
- setting up efficient input methods may not be completely trivial
- and there will be problems (like with tab) on transiting systems
etc

------------
¹ One of Dijkstra's memorable quotes:
   <<when we recognize the battle against chaos, mess, and 
   unmastered complexity as one of computing science's major callings, 
   we must admit that "Beauty is our Business">>
   http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD697.html