On Fri, 05 Apr 2013 21:53:40 -0600, Ian Kelly wrote: > 8 characters is common, but no more "correct" than any other,
This is pure revisionism. 8-column tabs may never have been a significant /de jure/ standard (although they have been that in many specific domains), but they have been a significant /de facto/ standard for almost as long as computers have existed. Historically, software and hardware which assigns a meaning to a tab character has come in two flavours: 1. Tab stops are every 8 columns; this cannot be changed. 2. Tab stops are configurable, defaulting to every 8 columns. Creating software which, in the absence of both a good reason and an explicit mechanism for communicating the configured value, treats them as configurable is usually a consequence of a "code now, think later" mentality (although there may have be a few cases where it was a deliberate "embrace, extend, extinguish" tactic). -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
