>>>>> On Sun, 14 Apr 2013, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: > On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:22:04 +0200 > Pacho Ramos <pa...@gentoo.org> wrote: >> It stated a tab represents 4 spaces. Where does this rule come from? >> Why 8 spaces wasn't chosen instead? I say that because looks like 8 >> spaces equivalence is used by tools like "cat", "less", even CVS >> reports in gentoo-commits show tabs as 8 spaces instead of 4.
> Hysterical raisins. Unfortunately drobbins mandated it that way early > on, because he didn't use a proper text editor. AFAIK, there's no standard that specifies the positions of tab stops, so multiples of 4 are as good as anything else. Different text editors have different defaults (Emacs uses multiples of 8, but it's easy to change). Of course, once you have a convention that is widely followed, it's wise not to change it ... Ulrich
