Public SourceMage Discussion List

[seth AT swoolley.homeip.net]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 02:12:22PM +0200, "Andra?? 'ruskie' Levstik" wrote:
> On 14:05:08 2008-07-22 flux <flux AT sourcemage.org> wrote:
> > "Andra?? 'ruskie' Levstik" (ruskie AT codemages.net) wrote [08.07.22
> > 07:35]: > 1)
> > > DETAILS file is aligned on = I propose no tabs in this file as we
> > > have now:
> > >   SPELL=foo
> > > VERSION=bar
> > >  SOURCE=$SPELL-VERSION
> > >  
> > > Tabs here would mess it up
> > I'm fine with this (it's what we already have anyway).
> > 
> > > 2)
> > > BUILD file when not default tends to be aligned on some conditional
> > > clauses and end of line with configure and options:
> > > if [[ foo == bar ]; then
> > > [tab]./configure --opt1 \
> > > [tab]            --opt2 \
> > > [tab]            --opt3 &&
> > > [tab]make
> > > fi
> > >  
> > > ([tab] means tab and " " space means space... so in the above lines
> > > there's only one tab...)
> > There is a new issue that comes up with tabs: not everyone has tabs set
> > to the same width, so the formatting will be different on different
> > screens (this is probably the reason for the "no tabs" policy).
> > Tabspacing can be redefined in the different editors, but I have a
> > feeling we will end up in a war about tabspacing... "8 is best! No 4 is
> > best! You're all losers, 2! WTF, 5!" ad nauseum.
> > 
> 
> Irrelevant... since tabs won't be used for alignment... aligning will be
> done with spaces... SO everything will always look the same just different
> indentaions... hence why I used [tab]...

some guy comes through and sees:

if [[ foo == bar ]; then
        ./configure --opt1 \
                    --opt2 \
                    --opt3 &&
        make
fi

then adds a line with space indenting:

if [[ foo == bar ]; then
        ./configure --opt1 \
                    --opt2 \
                    --opt3 \
                    --opt4 &&
        make
fi

doesn't realize you put invisible tabs in there, and now you see the diff:

  if [[ foo == bar ]; then
        ./configure --opt1 \
                    --opt2 \
-                   --opt3 &&
+                   --opt3 \
+                     --opt4 &&
        make
  fi

oops, fscked it up, didn't it?

Tabs are an abomination for code readability of anything but structured 
data as a delimiter.  I don't care what editor or elixer you're using.

they're invisible at least part of the time, and that's enough to render 
them useless.

Having spaces with arbitrary "tab width" is better than using tabs at all.

That being said, anything more than two spaces to offset a control 
block baseline unless you're aligning with an argument or a syntax 
structure is overkill.

Seth

> 
> --
> Andra?? "ruskie" Levstik
> Source Mage GNU/Linux Games grimoire guru
> Geek/Hacker/Tinker
> 
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-- 
Seth Alan Woolley     Pacific Green Candidate for Secretary of State
                                                http://seth4sos.org/
State Coordinating Committee Member
Secretary and Parliamentarian               Senior Software Engineer
2008 Elections Administrator            Rich Map Compiler and Engine
Pacific Green Party of Oregon        deCarta: Powering LBS Solutions

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