Delight

[Bill Baxter]

On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 6:03 AM, Sergey Gromov <snake.scaly at gmail.com> wrote:
> In article <gbgs5p$26n$1 at digitalmars.com>, charleshixsn at earthlink.net
> says...
>> As I said, I first read this years ago.  Since that time my opinions on
>> the matter have become more convinced.  I have never seen any evidence
>> that on honest examination didn't boil down to "I don't like tabs".  So
>> I kludge when I must exchange code with such people/applications, and
>> when I receive code that uses space for indentation, I laboriously
>> remedy the problem.  But I don't think there was was better.  (Actually,
>> it's not usually all that laborious, but it's extra work that I despise
>> having to do.)
>
> To myself, I've reduced the spaces/tabs cons to the following:
>
> If you use strictly spaces, you must negotiate indentation width for a
> project, you must cope with the chosen indentation width if you don't
> like it, and you'll probably want to switch between different widths if
> you work on many external projects, though nothing bad happens if you
> forget.
>
> If you use strictly tabs, you must never, ever, align things in columns
> except by the means of indentation, and therefore you can have only one
> aligned column.
>
> That's it.  The rest is a matter of personal choice.  There is only one
> con for tabs, and if you consider it minor, then tabs are for you.

My version of it is:

Pro tabs argument:  "Assuming everyone uses a perfect text editor that
handles tabs flawlessly at all times, then tabs are great!"    Bzzzt!
fail on underpinning assumption.  This is the Idealist's argument.

Pro spaces argument: "You have to modify the file to reindent, but at
least everyone sees the same thing and there are no surprises".   The
Pragmatist's argument.

So it is pragmatist vs idealist in the end.  I agree that in a perfect
world every editor would handle tabs perfectly and we'd all work
together for the common good and no one would ever be hungry or
overweight or sick.  But that's not the world we live in.

--bb