On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 11:42 AM, Steve D'Aprano <steve+pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > Or perhaps "just that one guy": here is JMZ, who says it is "impossible" to > do anything with a text file unless you know what a TAB character > represents: > > I just care that two people editing the same file use the same > interpretations, and that it's possible to look at a file and > know what interpretation of the TAB character was used, because > otherwise it's just impossible to read. > > https://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html > > > Jamie Zawinski is a clever man, but I've read that document probably a dozen > times over the years, and I still don't understand it. If I indent > something using tab characters: > > indent 1 > indent 2 > indent 1 again > > why does JMZ need to know how many columns *I* choose to use to display > this?
It's the same problem that you get when you put byte value 97 into a file and it's impossible to know whether you meant for it to be displayed in Courier or Times Roman. When you care about that level of detail, *you're doing it wrong*. Text files are not intended to convey exact pixel arrangements - they're for carrying linguistic information. In a text file, horizontal tab means "move horizontally". It doesn't mean "move eight times the width of one standard character" (which is less standard than a standard drink), and it doesn't mean "move 30mm", and it certainly doesn't mean "move into debate mode against people who use spaces". ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
