On Feb 9, 2007, at 11:43, Kevin Ballard wrote:
On Feb 9, 2007, at 12:39 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
I assume that's due to the stupid setting available in emacs or vi
or whatever editor it is that actually encourages that behavior.
The one where they've said "We want to indent to 4-space tabs.
However, the editor is configured to print 8 spaces for a tab.
Therefore, when we want to indent one level, we will use 4 spaces,
and when we want to indent 2 levels, we will use one tab, and when
we want to indent three levels, we will use one tab and then 4
spaces." And so forth. I'm convinced such an editor setting exists
somewhere, because I have seen this nonsense in other projects
too, even to the extreme of 2-space indentation. (Indent sequence:
2 spaces, 4 spaces, 6 spaces, one tab, one tab and 2 spaces, etc.)
I doubt that's the case. I see this in places where there's 2 tabs
followed by 4 spaces. Why would somebody have their tabs set to
width 8 and then want to indent 4 for a nesting level? That makes
no sense.
It makes no sense to me either, but I have seen it occur, and hadn't
come up with another explanation for how it could come about. Perhaps
it comes about from one person using an editor that uses tabs, and
then someone else who uses an editor that uses spaces. I don't know.
No, not really a problem. I would accept extra disk space if this
solution brought significant advantages, but I'm saying it brings
drawbacks.
Do you view commenting code as a drawback as well? That adds far
more disk space than changing tabs to spaces does. The disk space
is simply a non-issue.
No, if course I don't object to comments, and I meant to say that I
would happily accept the extra disk space needed by using only
spaces, if using only spaces brought only advantages. However, I had
intended to point out in the rest of my email that I see some
disadvantages as a result of this practice.
I use TextWrangler, the free sibbling of BBEdit.
Also, if I press the Tab key on the keyboard, it inserts a tab
character. Even if I could tell the editor to insert spaces
instead, I would not configure my editor this way, because that is
not how I want to use my editor in every other text file that I edit.
Funny, I use soft tabs almost exclusively, and dislike it when I
have to switch back to hard tabs just to fit the indentation used
by a particular text file.
Now I'm curious: What editor do other people use to edit their
portfiles?
Usually TextMate, but sometimes vim.
I'm just saying that you may like 2-space tabs, but I don't. If
that's what we standardize on, I'll be unhappy. Someone else may
like 3-space tabs, and they'll be unhappy unless we choose that.
Why choose at all? Why not let the user choose with their editor's
tab width setting? That's what it's for.
Sure, that's what it's for, but it doesn't work. Go look around at
the current source. Sure, it's mostly tabs, but I routinely run
into spaces mixed among the tabs and it causes indentation problems.
There's a reason that software projects often standardize their
coding style, including spacing conventions.
I agree that standardizing the spacing of a software project can be
beneficial. I just want to encourage debate about the specific
conventions you're proposing.
If we do decide on an indentation convention, then a pre-commit hook
in the repository should probably enforce it. One point in favor of
your suggestion is that it makes the hook script very easy: if the
file contains any tab character at all, it does not conform to your
conventions. Writing a hook to verify conformance to my suggestion
would be more complicated, though I think not impossible.
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