Indenting with tabs vs spaces
Steve Lamb
grey at despair.dmiyu.org
Fri Nov 30 18:10:44 EST 2001
On Thu, 22 Nov 2001 03:58:08 -0800, Peoter Veili <peoter_veliki at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Indenting with tabs can be done such that it will look the same on every
> editor that uses fixed-width fonts, meaning everything will line up
> correctly, it least in the sense that really matters. Here's an example of
> what I mean:
Uhhh....
> function helloThere("hello",
> "there"){
> }
...no.
> The proper way to do this is the second line needs to be typed with one tab
> followed by enough spaces to line up the "hello" and "there".
A tab is a variable. I have tab set to 2 spaces. You have it set to 8.
So by your logic you hit tab + 32 spaces. To you that would b 40 spaces. To
me that is 32. 40 != 32, even for large values of 32.
> This way the "hello" and "there" will line up correctly on any editor. If
> the person was lazy and tabbed all the way out to right before "there" and
> then filled in with a few spaces, it may not line up depending on what your
> tabwidth is set to.
Which is what happens if you use a single tab or 32 tabs. A space is a
space. 1=1. All others are variable.
> Besides this I know of no problems with using tabs. I find them cleaner and
> more efficient. I'd rather tab 10 times than hit the space bar 40 times. I
> never have to go through a whole file and manually line things up because at
> one place in the file I accidentally didn't indent with the right amount of
> spaces and half the file needs fixing. Auto-indent helps, but still....
So does moving blocks back and forth (>> and << in vim, ^K> and ^K< in
Joe, etc...). Mark the beginning, mark the end, move block. No biggie. As
for hitting space 40 times or tab 10 I rather hold down the space bar once.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
To email: Don't despair! | -- Lenny Nero, Strange Days
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
More information about the Python-list
mailing list