From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andreas Ericsson Subject: Re: On Tabs and Spaces Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:36:32 +0200 Message-ID: <47168E70.4070305@op5.se> References: <634393B0-734A-4884-93E3-42F7D3CB157F@mit.edu> <471476B7.5050105@users.sourceforge.net> <8c5c35580710160204s5a4f9fb3j68c0a86c4d080cb7@mail.gmail.com> <47148F72.1090602@users.sourceforge.net> <1192548367.3821.4.camel@lt21223.campus.dmacc.edu> <3awb7zw6.fsf@blue.sea.net> <1192565900.6430.16.camel@athena> <20071017015109.303760cc@localhost.localdomain> <3A9408D5-2667-43A6-A0CE-C0720B3A3987@vicaya.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: Jari Aalto X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu Oct 18 00:36:48 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IiHVQ-0005UN-3W for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:36:48 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932165AbXJQWgh (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:36:37 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1757483AbXJQWgh (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:36:37 -0400 Received: from mail.op5.se ([193.201.96.20]:38540 "EHLO mail.op5.se" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756582AbXJQWgh (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:36:37 -0400 Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.op5.se (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7547D1730655; Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:36:35 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at X-Spam-Flag: NO X-Spam-Score: -2.499 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.499 tagged_above=-10 required=6.6 tests=[AWL=0.000, BAYES_00=-2.599, RDNS_NONE=0.1] Received: from mail.op5.se ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mail.op5.se [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id BIy3-jdQ95BE; Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:36:34 +0200 (CEST) Received: from nox.op5.se (unknown [172.27.77.30]) by mail.op5.se (Postfix) with ESMTP id 593A51730646; Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:36:34 +0200 (CEST) User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.5 (X11/20070727) In-Reply-To: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Jari Aalto wrote: > * Wed 2007-10-17 Michael Witten > * Message-Id: E29971BA-7306-4570-8383-26D0C9C0B814@mit.edu >> On 17 Oct 2007, at 3:17:08 AM, Luke Lu wrote: >> >>> But I still haven't seen any compelling arguments against the "all >>> space" case >> Overhead! >> >> If you use 8 spaces instead of one tab, >> that's using up 7x more space! > > Software is the right place to worry about optimization. We should trust > SCM to make proper and efficient deltas. If not, algorithms need > improvemnts. > > Any cross platform development or electronic exchange is guaranteed to > be interpreted correctly when policy enforces "only spaces" > > As we have already seen in numerous times in this thread, using tabs > will - eventually - be interpreted in some editor, in some display, in > some encironment using some tools ... incorrectly or different than the > author intended. Simply because editors are configurable and we cannot > know what settings they may have when they load the file in. > And simply because nearly all (unix) editors still insert a hard tab when pressing the tab key, and *mixing* tabs and spaces makes the situation *really* unbearable, one really shouldn't use all spaces. It's code, not graphics. If it's really horrible, any editor can be configured to change the non-default tab-setting back to 8 if that's the problem. Mine's set to 4. Primarily because I think 8 is too much. Sometimes (roughly once every 2 years), that gives me problem. It's exclusively when someone has consciously mixed tabs and spaces. Using either or *never* gives any problem. > There is no such problem with spaces. > I beg to differ, for reasons stated multiple times elsewhere in this thread. > The storage constraints are insignificant given the disk space vs. cost; Perhaps, but it's low-hanging fruit and since all spaces have its issues too, why not just go with tabs? -- Andreas Ericsson andreas.ericsson@op5.se OP5 AB www.op5.se Tel: +46 8-230225 Fax: +46 8-230231