[boost] Re: Tabs creep back into source files

From: David B. Held (dheld_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-09-09 14:21:40

>"Eric Woodruff" <Eric.Woodruff_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
>news:025801c25825$b1f7b370$1800000a_at_soy...
>
> Spaces are lowlevel, tabs are highlevel.

And if Boost used a high level document format like PDF or RTF, that might
be a consideration.

> There just needs to be a standard of 1 tab per indentation, not two. If
> you like your indentation to be further, use a wider tab. It is no
different
> then specifying 3 spaces for indendation vs 4 or 8. The unit of
indentation
> is all that needs to be consistent, not the method of implementing it.

You also have to forbid leading spaces after tabs (for instance, to indent
a partial tab...6 spaces, on a 4-space tab).  And what is the benefit of
using tabs for indents, but spaces for alignment?  I like to align member
function names in my classes at a certain column, even if there is text
before it (like a return type).  Using a different tab size is going to mess
up the alignment of my code (because c'tors don't have a return type to
align).  Here's what I mean:

Tab size: 4
Function indent: 16
'*' == ' '

class foo
{
****************foo() { }
****void********bar() { }
};

Tab size: 2

class foo
{
********foo() { }
**void********bar() { }
};

[Beman wrote:]
> > "* Developer A of library has tabs set for 4.
> >  * Developer B commits trivial fix. Developer B's editor had tabs set at
2,
> > but converted tabs on the changed line only to spaces.

> If developer B uses tabs of 2, I can't possibly see how it is messed up.

See above.

> They purposely want their tabs at 2. "Messed up" is highly subjective.

I don't think you'll find many people that think the second version of my
code above is not "messed up".

> If the standard is to use tabs, then obviously, the standard must be that
the
> tabs remain in the files, and editors that translate them are not allowed.

The problems, of course, are partial tab indents, tabs-for-alignment, and
"assumed tab width indent", which is the problem illustrated above.  That
is, my code assumes that the tab size is 4, and aligns other text (with
spaces) accordingly.  One workaround is to use one indent, and add
spaces to the rest of the line, but who really wants to maintain that
convention?

Dave