On 2013-04-08, Nobody <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:30:45 +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> And your point is?
The point is that there is little historical precedent for assuming
that tab stops are evenly and equally spaced across the page (let
alone one particular fixed, even spacing) -- and people who mix spaces
and tabs based on such false assumptions are responsible for their own
bleeding foot.
> Typewriters don't have a tab "character". The information regarding tab
> stops is conveyed out-of-band from the typist to the typewriter, and
> doesn't need to persist beyond the time taken to type the document.
And the same is true when you don't mix tabs and spaces when indenting
Python code. If you use tabs alone when indenting Python code it
doesn't matter where the tabs are set -- they don't even have to be
equally spaced -- the meaning of the source file is unambiguous.
If you mix tabs and spaces, then you've got to provide out-of-band
information regarding the position of the tab stops in order to make
the source code unambiguous. Since there's no mechanism to provide
that OOB tab stop info, mixed tabs and spaces isn't accepted.
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