Matthew wrote:

<snip>
> Aren't you just backing up my argument that you untabify your source before bundling. As it stands, it's not context-free, since it assumes tabstops are 8.
> 
> There's no good saying that others are wrong, since there's a proliferation of editors that use soft tabs, set to the "scientifically optimal" 4. If you want your code to appear correctly irrespective of context, it needs to be untabified.
<snip>

Yes, most coding environments do seem to be set to a tab size of 4.

Indeed, I would somehow doubt there to be any universal standard here. If anything, then I guess someone decided 8 would be a good number for his/her/its purposes, and various people followed suit.  OTOH, programmers felt that 8 was too wide, and the 4-space tab caught on in that community.  I don't know about the old Fortraners, when they had to indent every statement by 8 chars anyway....

There are three options being discussed here...

1. Tabs only
Pros:
- disk space efficient
- easy and painless to type
- when viewed in an editor with customisable tab sizes, appears at the size the user finds most comfortable
Cons:
- when viewed at bigger tab size, long, deeply indented lines are more likely to fall off the screen

2. Spaces only
Pros:
- consistent display
- some editors can auto-convert tabs to spaces, making this form easy to produce
- layout preserved in situations where tab chars may not be transmitted/rendered properly
Cons:
- take up more disk space
- tedious to type in primitive editors (e.g. Notepad)
- harder to maintain by others who prefer tabs, if their tab width is different (e.g. two-space indentation seems to tend to come out of Emacs users....)

3. Tabs with space half-indentation
Pros:
- finer, more 'comfortable' indentation than some tab width hard-coded in certain contexts
- less tedious than all-space indenting in Notepad
- slightly more compact on disk than all-space indenting
Cons:
- looks a mess/hard to follow in environments having different tab width

OK, so option 2 has the most cons, but the first is fairly minor and the rest are somewhat dependent on other factors.  And I imagine most programmers don't edit their code in Notepad, which isn't very suited to  the task anyway.  The con of 1 isn't all that serious when you consider that people aren't all going to be viewing at the same window width anyway.  OTOH, when I try to maintain code written in technique 3, I invariably find myself 'tidying' the indentation so that it makes sense in my comfort settings.

NTS, I prefer 1, and tend to release code with the tabs still in place.  But if I'm putting code on a web page, then I change them to spaces. When posting code to a newsgroup I don't seem to be consistent, and I'm not sure how different newsreaders handle tab chars....

Stewart.

-- 
My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox, aside from its being the unfortunate victim of intensive mail-bombing at the moment.  Please keep replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit.

On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 22:07:52 -0400, Ant wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 18:47:21 -0700, Walter wrote:
> 
>> 
>> "Ant" <Ant_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:caihjb$1714$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>> In article <caiaqb$ti1$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter says...
>>> >Printers, the linux command prompt, the windows command prompt, the DOS command prompt, the RT-11 command prompt, TOPS-10 command prompt, every
>> TTY
>>> >I've used from ASR-33 to VT-100, html browsers, etc., all have tab stops
>> at
>>> >8. Programs that default to anything other than 8 should be abandoned. Programs that allow tab stops to be customized should be flogged.
>>> >
>>>
>>> you are stuck in the past, sorry.
>> 
>> Sorry, I'm using the latest Microsoft Explorer, the latest HP laser printer, the latest Windows XP, and Red Hat Linux 9. All have 8 character tab stops wired in <g>.
> 
> They are also living in the past ;)
> printer? printer? who prints things anymore? that's 20th century ;)
> 
> But, that list doesn't contain a code editor.
> All posters on this thread use tabs.

Hmmm...actually I don't. I never use them anymore. Haven't for many, many years now. The SPACE character is a fixed width but the TAB is variable, depending on many factors. The default is nearly always 8 spaces, but as that can be changed by nearly every (modern) editor and printing program, I gave up trying to keep code lined up using tabs.


> inclusive the original poster that asked for spaces!
> all of them redefine the tab stops.

The editors I use (EmEditor and Code-genie) automatically insert the right number of spaces when I press the TAB key.

Oh well, its good to have a variety of opinions. Keeps the mind active.

-- 
Derek
Melbourne, Australia

Caring about this issue is evil, IMHO.  Whoever wrote the code wrote the code, you are welcome to write code the way you do.  Code talks...

My, what a lovely bikeshed you have :)

Can we worry about D here, instead of coding standards?  Even if Walter were to untabify, he would untabify at 8 spaces per tab, which all of you would dislike.  Why not just live with the code that was written for you?

Scott

Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> Tabs in source code is evil (IMNSHO).
> 
> Lars Ivar Igesund

"stonecobra" <scott@stonecobra.com> wrote in message news:cakh8a$1b5u$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Caring about this issue is evil, IMHO.  Whoever wrote the code wrote the code, you are welcome to write code the way you do.  Code talks...

... and?

> My, what a lovely bikeshed you have :)

Over my head.

> Can we worry about D here, instead of coding standards?

Not caring about coding standards at all. Caring about how D looks, both to people that need to use it on a day to day basis but already like it, and to people who may have reasons to look for things to criticise in it.

>  Even if Walter
> were to untabify, he would untabify at 8 spaces per tab, which all of
> you would dislike.

You've clearly not understood the issue. If he untabified at 8sp per tab, we would be very happy indeed.

> Why not just live with the code that was written for
> you?

We will, whether it looks nice and is readily comprehended or not. I raised the issue to ease the task, in a small way, for many people. Cumulatively there will be a lot of time spent arsing around trying to get the D sources into a form that is readable. Almost all of that time will be better spent writing D libraries, or D programs.

Or do you not think readibility is a factor in understanding?

Matthew wrote:

> "stonecobra" <scott@stonecobra.com> wrote in message
> news:cakh8a$1b5u$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
>>Caring about this issue is evil, IMHO.  Whoever wrote the code wrote the
>>code, you are welcome to write code the way you do.  Code talks...
> 
> 
> ... and?

bull%$&* (all posts on this subject) walks.

> 
> 
>>My, what a lovely bikeshed you have :)
> 
> 
> Over my head.

http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/faq/16.19.shtml

> 
> 
>>Can we worry about D here, instead of coding standards?
> 
> 
> Not caring about coding standards at all. Caring about how D looks, both to
> people that need to use it on a day to day basis but already like it, and to
> people who may have reasons to look for things to criticise in it.

How is this not a coding standard?

> 
> 
>> Even if Walter
>>were to untabify, he would untabify at 8 spaces per tab, which all of
>>you would dislike.
> 
> 
> You've clearly not understood the issue. If he untabified at 8sp per tab, we
> would be very happy indeed.

I do understand the issue, but the people with 4 spaces/tab editors that use tabs to code with will be unhappy because the code is indented too much.

> 
> 
>>Why not just live with the code that was written for
>>you?
> 
> 
> We will, whether it looks nice and is readily comprehended or not. I raised the
> issue to ease the task, in a small way, for many people. Cumulatively there will
> be a lot of time spent arsing around trying to get the D sources into a form that
> is readable. Almost all of that time will be better spent writing D libraries, or
> D programs.
> 
> Or do you not think readibility is a factor in understanding?

I do think readability is a factor in understanding, which is why I prefer the VisualBasic way, where the editor re-writes every line of code to comply to a readability standard, whether you like it or not. But I am not going to tell people how to code to some common readability standard, especially when they are clearly against it and unlikely to change.  Hence the bikeshed comment.

I apologize everyone, this will be my last post on the subject of tabs and spaces.

Scott Sanders

In article <cakqm0$1pmr$1@digitaldaemon.com>, stonecobra says...
>
>
>http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/faq/16.19.shtml
>

You're right, but this is the 3rd or 4th time this subject comes up and only people with the wrong idea speak up. This time I thought I could strait things up ;)

however Matthew and Walter are right. on shared projects a minimum set of rules is beneficial.

for example:
Linux contributions should use 8 spaces tabs (and 25x80) and they explain why:
With 8 spaces tabs you will notice when or code is getting too complex.

Ant

"stonecobra" <scott@stonecobra.com> wrote in message news:cakqm0$1pmr$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/faq/16.19.shtml

Thanks for the spot on target reference. I read Parkinson's books as a kid, but I'd forgotten that one.

"Matthew" <admin@stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message news:cajh25$2p8d$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> I reckon I'm
> pretty typical as a developer in thinking everyone else's style is
intolerably
> ugly.

Yup. That's the norm.

> Several times in the past I've been instrumental in writing coding standards for clients - I have my mature concessional head on at such
times <g> -
> and it's always the source of huge controversy. It's kind of amusing that
there's
> always more attention, and _much_ more heat, on the coding standards than
on the
> source control standards, or release procedures. Fools are we all. :)

I have engaged in this discussion primarilly tongue-in-cheek, in case nobody noticed <g>.

On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 23:52:23 -0700, Walter <newshound@digitalmars.com> wrote:
> "Regan Heath" <regan@netwin.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:opr9klqrto5a2sq9@digitalmars.com...
>> If so, yuck! no wonder there is a problem! What crack addled chimpanzee
>> decided that was a good idea??!
>
> [Raising hand]
>
> -- crack addled chimpanzee

:)

> P.S. Adding a tab-to-space converter for release raises the spectre of
> having same-only-different versions of the source, something that isn't
> worth it.

I agree.

> P.P.S. "So you cannot tell a printer to use a different tabstop?" Sure I
> can. If I can find where I put the documention on it. And for my source
> debugger, and Explorer, and the command prompt, and the linux printer
> driver, and on and on, and for everyone else who wants to look at the code
> as well. No thanks. Switching tab stops is like using a Dvorak keyboard.
> Sure, qwerty sucks, but it sucks worse to be unable to type on any keyboard
> but your own - and like your friend will let you install a Dvorak driver on
> his laptop so you can check your email <g>.

Sad but true.

So basically you should give up your 'dvorak' text editor and use a broken one like the rest of us?

IMO not mixing tabs and spaces, and using an editor that displays tabs as x spaces gives you the most flexibility, and everyone else the most flexibility, to be honest how often do you print source code?

Representing a tab as 4 spaces in one instance and as a \t in the other just seems wrong to me. It's a gut reaction.

Regan.

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On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 16:36:45 +1000, Matthew <admin@stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote:
>> > Walter uses an indentation scheme that I'm familiar with via (g)vim.
>> > Basically,
>> > if the indent is odd (i.e. 1st, 3rd, 5th), then the editor inserts 4
>> > spaces. For
>> > even indents (2nd, 4th, etc.) then it inserts a single hard tab.
>>
>> So you're saying it mixes spaces and tabs on a single line? i.e.
>>
>>      I pressed tab once
>> \tI pressed tab twice
>> \t    I pressed tab 3 times
>> \t\tI pressed tab 4 times
>> \t\t    I pressed tab 5 times
>>
>> yes?
>
> If, translating your invisible spaces for ., you mean
>
> ....I pressed tab once
> \tI pressed tab twice
> \t....I pressed tab 3 times
> \t\tI pressed tab 4 times
> \t\t....I pressed tab 5 times
>
> then yes

Yep, that is what I mean't.

>> If so, yuck! no wonder there is a problem! What crack addled chimpanzee
>> decided that was a good idea??!
>
> LOL!!!
>
> That's a fantastic one. I must remember that. <G>

It's one of my favourites.. I have some others, but they're not really for public consumption.

> I've been meaning to put up a web page with "SE Abuses" for ages. I think you've
> inspired me to put it on again. Or maybe we can just pick the juciest for an
> Appendix in the D book? :)

"SE Abuses" == ?

Regan

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