Eli Gottlieb wrote: > Actually, spaces are better for indenting code. The exact amount of > space taken up by one space character will always (or at least tend to > be) the same, while every combination of keyboard driver, operating > system, text editor, content/file format, and character encoding all > change precisely what the tab key does.
What you see as tabs' weakness is their strength. They encode '1 level of indentation', not a fixed width. Of course tabs are rendered differently by different editors -- that's the point. If you like indentation to be 2 or 3 or 7 chars wide, you can view your preference without forcing it on the rest of the world. It's a logical rather than a fixed encoding. > There's no use in typing "tab" for indentation when my text editor will > simply convert it to three spaces, or worse, autoindent and mix tabs > with spaces so that I have no idea how many actual whitespace characters > of what kinds are really taking up all that whitespace. I admit it > doesn't usually matter, but then you go back to try and make your code > prettier and find yourself asking "WTF?" Sounds like the problem is your editor, not tabs. But I wouldn't rule out PEBCAK either. ;) > Undoubtedly adding the second spark to the holy war, Undoubtedly. Let's keep it civil, shall we? And please limit the cross-posting to a minimum. (directed at the group, not you personally Eli). -- Edward Elliott UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) complangpython at eddeye dot net -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
