On Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:26:56 +0000, Tim Harig wrote: > I agree with Seebs, Python is the only language I know that promotes the > use of spaces over tabs;
Really? I'm not aware of *any* language that promotes tabs over spaces. I thought the tabs vs spaces war was mostly won by spaces over a decade ago (apart from a few plucky freedom fighters who will never surrender). > and there are equally picky syntaxs (ie, > Makefiles) that mandate the use of tabs. I personally prefer tabs as it > lets *me* decide how far the apparent indentations are in the code. You > may like four spaces; but, I agree with Linus Torvalds that eight spaces > is much clearer. The beautiful thing about tabs is that we can both set > our tab stops to match our own viewing preferences. Actually I agree with you about tabs. I think tabs are far more logical and sensible. But I'm stuck with broken tools that don't deal with tabs, and with PEP 8 that mandates the use of spaces, and popular opinion that says make is crazy for using tabs. So, I bite my lip, stop using broken tools that make dealing with space- indents painful, and just deal with it. And you know what? It's not so bad after all. > This is Python's most noticable blemish outside of the community. > Everybody knows that Python is the language that forces you to use a > particular style of formatting; and, that is a turn-off for many people. Their loss. I don't miss the flame wars over the One True Brace Style. There are enough disagreements over coding conventions without adding to them. > It is a big mistake that whenever the issue arises, the community > effectively attacks anybody who might have disagreements with the > tradeoffs made for the Python language. This tends to set people on the > defensive and gives them a bad taste about the language as a whole. That's very insightful. Why don't you apply some of that insight to the other side? It is *incredibly* annoying to see the same old people making the same old snide remarks about the same old issues over and over again, particularly when: * it's not an issue for thousands of other users; * even if it were an issue, if you use the right tool for the job, the issue disappears; * and even if there is no right tool for the job, the feature isn't going to change; * and even if it would change, the people doing the whinging aren't going to volunteer to make the change. > It would be much better if the community would simply acknowledge that > this is a tradeoff the the language has made and one which is often > misunderstood by many first time Python programmers. Been there, done that. This is *old news*. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
