On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 08:49:33PM -0500, Bruce Dubbs wrote: > Ken Moffat wrote: > > >Bruce, I can see that you use tiny tab spacing in your own code, but > >what is your objection to tabs in a patch ? If upstream uses tabs, > >then tabs are the right thing for the patch. For a sed, spacing and > >alignment are optional. > > My objection to embedded taps is that different users have different > settings for tab stops. The files look a lot different if viewed in an > editor and in a cat. If spaces are used, then the file looks identical for > everyone no matter what tools are used. >
The content of a patch (i.e. the actual diff) ought to match the standards of the project to which it is being applied - i.e the upstream, not our own individual preferences. The kernel uses tabs. Other projects will no-doubt have their own standards, but tabs seem to be very common. I can notice this in 'view' because the "excess whitespace" of a context line (a space in front of a tab) gets highlighted for me. As to what is in the description, I do not see any particular reason to care if it uses tabs or spaces. So, if I cherry-pick a commit, I will probably paste the description from the original commit after re-diffing. > At one time, the difference in spaces and tabs made a difference in file > size. Today, a few dozen bytes in the file size is quite negligible. > > As far as small tab sizes go (indentation), there has been quite a bit of > research (admittedly old now), that says that the readability of source code > is optimal at 2-4 spaces for indentation. I split the difference and use 3. > "Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three." ;-) For C-style code, 8 helps show the structure of a long function much better IMHO. For bash, which is what I write these days, I find 8 easier to follow - but I do drop to 4 if I need to nest 'if' statements, and sometimes I will indent two spaces for a continuation. > Also, for indentation of fixed pitch fonts (for example 12 point monospaced) > is about 6 points or .083 inch. Indentation of 8 characters then is about > 2/3 inch. In a printed text, how often do you see that much indention in > printed (paper) documents? Rarely because 1) it wastes space, and 2) > because it actually makes comprehension slower. > For a printed text, all the considerations are different, and small indentation often makes a lot of sense. You might even use a proportional font if printing, depending on the content. ĸen -- Nanny Ogg usually went to bed early. After all, she was an old lady. Sometimes she went to bed as early as 6 a.m. -- http://lists.linuxfromscratch.org/listinfo/blfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
