On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:20:32 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 12:52 AM, Nobody <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote: >> 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. > > 3. Tab stops are measured in something other than characters. > > With variable-width fonts, it's illogical to set tab stops in > characters. DeScribe Word Processor defined them in centimeters, way > back in the early... well, I didn't meet it till the 90s, but I don't > know how long it had been around before that.
Am I the only one here who has used a typewriter? Tab stops were set manually, to a physical distance into the page, using a mechanical stop. This long predates the "rule" that tab stops are every 8 characters. If your editor doesn't support setting tab stops to at least single pixel resolution, it's not supporting tabs, it's supporting something else that it merely calls "tabs". -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
