Who are the "spacists"?

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 8:19 AM, alister <alister.ware at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2017 06:04:12 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 5:57 AM, alister <alister.ware at ntlworld.com>
>> wrote:
>>> I have just tested this with geany & it works a charm,
>>>
>>> personally I prefer tabs for setting my indent levels, it feels more
>>> logical & breaks nothing if the font or tab size is changed but votes
>>> have been counted & the jury has returned a verdict
>>>
>>> Spaces are the preferred option, but you are still able to make your
>>> own choice.
>>
>> I'm so glad the world isn't a democracy. "The votes have been counted"
>> means nothing. :)
>>
>> ChrisA
>
> you know as well as Id that I meant this discussion was had many years
> ago & the decision was made.
>
> to be honest I don't know whether it was by a consensus of the community
> or simply Guido tossing a coin. either way does not matter it is not
> something that is going to change now.
>
> fortunately both tabs & spaces are still supported so individual
> programmes can still make their own decisions, the only time it makes any
> difference is when working on a collaboration with other programmers when
> style guides have to be agreed.

See, that's the thing. PEP 7 and PEP 8 govern the source code for the
Python language itself, and there is no requirement to follow their
recommendations in other projects. If you choose to adopt PEP 8 as the
basis of your style guide, you should still make your own decisions on
the points where the specific recommendations are less important than
internal consistency - and tabs vs spaces is definitely one of them.
The decision has NOT been made for the entire Python community.

And even the decision governing the standard library was not on the
basis of a vote. It was the basis of a considered decision by the
person responsible. Like I said, the world - and Python - is not a
democracy. :)

ChrisA