Who are the "spacists"?

[Mikhail V]

On 18 March 2017 at 16:54, Lutz Horn <lutz.horn at posteo.de> wrote:
> Am 18.03.17 um 16:18 schrieb Mikhail V:
>> On 18 March 2017 at 05:02, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au>
>> wrote:
>>> Mikhail V <mikhailwas at gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> I think it would be a salvation to forbid spaces for indentation,
>>>> did such attemps take place?
>>>
>>> Feel free to start your own discussion forum for your new
>>> programming language that forbids spaces for indentation. That
>>> language will never be Python, so please don't ask us to discuss it
>>> here.
>
>> So you are the opinion it would be more productive to invent a new
>> language instead of just cleaning up spaces?
>
> Productive in solving what problem exactly? Why do you think a cleaning
> of spaces is necessary?

Ehm, why is it necessary? I won't mix them and I use tabs, so if I become a
source with spaces and edit it, I must replace them, then if a spacist becomes
tabulated code he replaces tabs with spaces again. Not a big
deal, but seems strange.

>
>> I think it still helps to realize that in the future this will become
>> more noticable problem than it seems now
>
> Why? What could be the problem? I fail to see how the Python policy of
> preferring spaces over tabs while allowing both if used consistent is
> causing any problem.

There can be some problems, say in one class a teacher says: never
use tabs, in other class a teacher says: don't use spaces.
Who is right?
This is not a major problem, but technically seen using tabs
is more logical way, but de-facto spaces are recommended.
I've noticed a tendency that more and more users
choose tabs. Indeed if you think about it, using several spaces for
one level of indentation is ridiculous and it is not only my opinion.
So tabs are quite natural choice, but with spaces being a 'recommended'
style, there are two 'camps' within one language.
New users will be always frustrated, and ask why is it bad to use tabs.
But can all teachers explain exactly the difference? So it starts as a
problem of choice.