Tabbing/Spaces

[Terry Hancock]

> Robin Becker writes:
> > In article <mtzogn9rpx.fsf at astron.berkeley.edu>, Johann Hibschman
> > <johann at physics.berkeley.edu> writes
> >> Robert L Hicks writes:
> > ...
> >> Well, a "tab stop" is defined to be equal to 8 spaces.  However, on
> > ...
> > Well, I define my tab stops and I make them equal to 4 spaces. Using
> > tabs allows me to alter all indents at once. Also quicker at travelling
> > back and forth across slow networks.
> 
> Would you prefer if I said that a "tab" was defined to be 8 spaces?
> Regardless of how you display them, python defines a tab to increment
> to the next 8-space boundary.
> 
> Shrug.  Whatever suits you best, I guess.  I just hate getting all-tab
> code, since then I have to re-indent it for it to be readable.
> All-space code, on the other hand, always looks fine.

This is entirely understandable, but it's a lot easier to use tabs
when writing (and I really wish it was set to 4 spaces myself). I'm
a gvim user -- I've tried emacs and xemacs and just never could get
into them.  But surely there's a simple way to please both -- aren't
there de-tabbing filters I can use to substitute spaces for tabs
(or vice-versa)?  What _I_ find really irritating is that my code
usually winds up being a mixture of the two.

Recommendations?
-- 
Terry Hancock
hancock at earthlink.net