The real issue is that many developers can't handle always using tabs
for indenting and always using spaces for spacing -- it's too much for
them, in part because the difference is invisible and thus mistakes only
become obvious to those with different tab stop settings.
All it takes is a few bad apples to produce an utterly bad result. Thus
in the real world with multiple real world programmers working on the
code any use of tabs becomes intolerable.
--
Jess Holle
On 7/1/2010 8:03 AM, Reinier Zwitserloot wrote:
In regards to the 'you can't mix and match' rule 3: Actually, The One
True Indent style *DOES* mix and match. Specifically, it mixes 'tabs
are for indents' and 'spaces are for spacing'.
Furthermore, the general complaint "Do not randomly mix indent styles"
is of course applicable, but this is a meta-rule. I don't really see
how you can claim that this is a problem with The One True Indent
style any more than it is with the all-spaces indent style. It is true
that some editors offer an easy "all spaces please" option, and TOTI
is less common, but that's a problem with your tools. The major 3 IDEs
can all be configured to auto-format in TOTI style.
In regards to rule 4: That's misleading as well. TOTI at least offers
a future where viewing source on a tiny mobile phone screen is going
to go ever so slightly better because of configurable tab stops. With
spaces you have to pick the same indent length for all devices;
presumably 4, but on a mobile phone you'd definitely want no more than
2. Again this argument seems either a wash or if anything in favour of
TOTI over all-spaces.
On Jul 1, 12:27 pm, Paul King<[email protected]> wrote:
I tend to be in the 'tabs are evil camp' most of the time. Not that they are
evil but there are some missing rules in Reinier's list. Rule 3: If you use
tabs you must use them everywhere - you can't mix and match and everyone
else must too. Rule 4: Every tool in your toolset including all future ones
must support and allow customisation of tab sizes. If I am browsing source
diffs through fisheye and it converts tabs to 8 spaces for display purposes,
that might be fine on a large screen but less useful on a mobile phone. In
fact, this is the exact scenario where tabs could be so useful but with many
tools, they just aren't right now. It's certainly better than it was 10
years ago but still has some way to go IMHO.
Still, it's not something to get too worried about - you should be able to
convert from one style to the other with a keystroke in most IDEs.
Paul.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Mark Volkmann<[email protected]>wrote:
I'm surprised that all the replies to this thread are in favor of tabs
over spaces. In my experience, the vast majority of developers favor
spaces. For me there is one main reason I prefer spaces ... printers.
Sometimes I print code. Printers seem to always use eight spaces for
tabs which causes many lines to wrap and makes it harder to read the
code. If there were a universal way to adjust that then I'd be okay
with using tabs for indentation.
This is the same reason why I don't like when lines are longer than 80
characters. Many of the lines will wrap when printed. Also, I find it
harder to read code with long lines. That's why newspaper columns
don't extend all the way across wide newspaper pages.
--
R. Mark Volkmann
Object Computing, Inc.
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