From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jan Wielemaker Subject: Re: On Tabs and Spaces Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:47:05 +0200 Message-ID: <200710172147.06025.wielemak@science.uva.nl> References: <634393B0-734A-4884-93E3-42F7D3CB157F@mit.edu> <1192645509.6640.21.camel@athena> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Tom Tobin , git@vger.kernel.org To: Linus Torvalds X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Oct 17 21:47:42 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 1IiErl-0001Ee-6t for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:47:41 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756479AbXJQTrT (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:47:19 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751063AbXJQTrT (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:47:19 -0400 Received: from smtp-vbr17.xs4all.nl ([194.109.24.37]:3800 "EHLO smtp-vbr17.xs4all.nl" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752036AbXJQTrS (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:47:18 -0400 Received: from ct.xs4all.nl (ct.xs4all.nl [82.92.39.12]) by smtp-vbr17.xs4all.nl (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l9HJl7eV086928; Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:47:11 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wielemak@science.uva.nl) User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 In-Reply-To: Content-Disposition: inline X-Virus-Scanned: by XS4ALL Virus Scanner Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Wednesday 17 October 2007 20:54, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Wed, 17 Oct 2007, Tom Tobin wrote: > > Or is "unix developers" code for "my sample size of one"? > > Well, let's put it this way: that "sample" is the one that started the > project. > > I got to pick the license. Are you going to argue about that too? I got to > pick the way I wrote the code. Are you going to continue arguing about > that? > > The fact is, I don't see the people arguing for spaces having actually > *done* anything for git. So why are you arguing? Possibly because they do not want to cooperate :-) Anyway, it is mostly a Unix <-> the rest issue. In the Unix world all tools by default use 8-spaces per tab and although most of them can be told otherwise, nobody bothers. That way at least all code looks the same, regardless of spaces or tabs. Many editors are smart enough to create sequences N+M for initial indentation to get consistent usage, but even if it isn't consistent patch and diff can be told to handle it. Outside the Unix world there appears to be little standard, so you receive files with any combination of tab distance, using tabs vs. spaces, etc. Most often I have to re-indent them before reading :-( I guess the most ideal situation is to use only tabs for initial indentation and spaces elsewhere, so changing the tab distance gets consistent layout. The drawback is that there is no room for `half indentation', so style conventions have to take care of that. Still, the main developers take the decision. If you don't like it, don't cooperate or fork. --- Jan