On Jul 1, 10:16 am, Weiqi Gao <[email protected]> wrote: > That we are having a Tabs vs. Spaces debate is a consequence of us > programming with mono-spaced fonts, which is not the only way to write > programs. A peek at Knuth's books or The C++ Programming Language ought > to convince you that programming in a proportional font would make your > program that much more pleasant to read. Of course, in that context, > you have to use Tabs for indenting and use Spaced for spacing. Using > spaces for indenting would be evil.
TeXnically, Knuth is using spaces for indenting. He uses (in plain TeX) an idiosyncratic manual that changes the catcodes of the characters in a block or file to be printed verbatim. Non-masters like us would use LaTeX and the verbatim environment, the \verb command, or use the moreverb package and its listing environment. > -- > Weiqi Gao > [email protected]http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/ > > On 07/01/2010 05:27 AM, Paul King 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] > > <mailto:[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.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
