On 2010-11-04, D'Arcy J.M. Cain <da...@druid.net> wrote: > On Thu, 4 Nov 2010 17:55:55 +0000 (UTC) > Tim Harig <user...@ilthio.net> wrote: >> What Seebs is refering to is that it is difficult or impossible to >> re-indent Python source automatically after the indent structure has been >> broken (such as his email being converted to html on the server or a web > > Right. If you mangle spaces in Python or mangle braces in C then > recovery becomes impossible. I don't think anyone is contesting that.
Examples of communication channels that mangle white space abound. I don't know of any that mangle either braces or pascal style start/end blocks. You are the one who seems to be on a crusade against against braces. It would seem to me, that if you want people to accept that white space formatting is superior, that you would be looking for a simple way to solve the white space mangling problem. > What we question is the idea that somehow Python is special in this > regard. If you move files around in ways that change them then your > tools are broken. The fact that the breakage is somewhat "friendlier" The world is full of broken tools that many of us have to use; but, why should we accept that your choice is superior when other choices manage to work with these tools without issues. > tools are broken. The fact that the breakage is somewhat "friendlier" > to some types of files is interesting but irrelevant. What would you > say to a file transfer program that changed Word documents? What about > executable files? Transfering binary programs has always been an issue and using text based communications (preferably human readable) has always been considered a good design decision. I put up with Python's white space idiosyncrasies; I wouldn't even bother looking at a language that requires me to enter the source in binary. I also consider the move toward XML based document formats a move in the right direction. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
