Re: [boost] Re: Tabs creep back into source files

From: Paul Mensonides (pmenso57_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-09-09 19:12:02

Just my two cents, though I think this a complete non-issue.  I personally
cannot stand using spaces for indentation.  Every editor that I have does a
lousy job of "guessing" where I want the next line indented to or if I want to
change the indentation level after the fact.  Spaces for indentation are
extremely annoying to me.  In fact, I write all of my files with tabs, and than
do a global replacement of tabs to spaces for Boost.  Consider the following
preprocessor-esque code:

# if ...
#    define ...
#    if ...
#        define
#    endif
# elif ...
#
#
# // etc.

No editor that I have can tell that those are indents, so tab changes require
backspacing three or four times.

I don't think this is really an issue, but there are some of us out there that
abhor spaces for indentation just as much as others abhor tabs.  This whole
argument is trivial.

Paul Mensonides

[ previous message ]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Woodruff" <Eric.Woodruff_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 10:23 AM
Subject: [boost] Re: Tabs creep back into source files

Horizontal alignment is only a relative concept, not absolute. The
indendentation width is easier adjusted as a per-user setting when using tabs,
where as it is inflexible when spaces are embedded as a an attempt to
communicate the indentation. It is like trying to manually center text vs
letting the word processor calculate the text's placement.

Spaces are lowlevel, tabs are highlevel.

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.

"
* 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.

It resulted in messed up source files."

If developer B uses tabs of 2, I can't possibly see how it is messed up. They
purposely want their tabs at 2. "Messed up" is highly subjective. 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.