On 14/04/13 14:28, Erik Christiansen wrote:
On 14.04.13 03:24, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
For the sake of portability, I recommend keeping 'tabstop' at its default of
8, setting 'expandtab' on, and using any values you like for 'shiftwidth'
and 'softtabstop'. This way existing hard tabs will be seen at multiples of
8, no new ones will be added, and tabbing or indenting will happen by adding
as many or as few spaces as you like. (You might also use :retab to get rid
of existing hard tabs in favour of spaces.)
Using expandtab (and :retab when importing text, authored elsewhere)
I've used tabstop=3 shiftwidth=3 scrolloff=3 without any portability or
printing problems, in the last couple of decades of software
development, and all other text hacking.
Since there are no tab characters in the resulting text, the ancient
custom of tabstop=8 (which stems from clanking iron typewriters, IIRC),
isn't in play.
Erik
With 'expandab' on, 'tabstop' still comes into play if you get (from
someone else, probably) a file containing hard tabs. In the absence of
specific info from the author of the file, you should then assume that
hard tabs are set at 8 (with :retab, «The current value of 'tabstop' is
always used to compute the width of existing tabs.»).
And, yeah, tab stops come from clanking iron typewriters (though the
ones I used, even the old used Underwood my grand-dad gave me in, oh,
1958 maybe, had movable tab stops like those Linda is asking for).
Similarly, ASCII comes from the 7-column papertape punches on some
models of clanking iron teletypewriters.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment
ruined.
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