Re: [boost] Tabs creep back into source files

From: Terje Slettebø (tslettebo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-09-09 09:05:47

>From: "Beman Dawes" <bdawes_at_[hidden]>

> Unn... Lots of tabs creeping back into source files.

The following have probably been covered before, but I didn't find a
rationale for it here (http://www.boost.org/more/lib_guide.htm). Why are
tabs banned in Boost libraries?

If you use tabs for indentation, and spaces for alignment, there shouldn't
be any problem with it. Tabs have an advantage over spaces in that it would
then show the source using the tab spacing that you prefer, and it would
still be aligned correctly.

Other advantages are:

- They tell logically what it's about, while spaces carry no such
information.
- It only takes the space of one character in the file, rather than N
characters.
- This makes it also faster to cursor through it, as it jumps in steps of N.
Some editors have the possibility to "cursor through tabs" (treat them as
spaces, for cursor movement), but I haven't seen any that are able to "tab
through spaces", :) i.e. jump in groups of N, at the right places.

Regards,

Terje