TABS in the CPython C source code
Alf P. Steinbach
alfps at start.no
Sat Feb 6 15:31:52 EST 2010
Just trying to delve into the CPython source code.
Pleasant surprise: while e.g. the gcc compiler is written in K&R C (1975 style
C), CPython seems to be written in almost modern C (1989 and on).
But, hey, TABS used for indenting, combined haphazardly and randomly with SPACES
used for indenting, in the same source files...
The size-8 tabs look really bad in an editor configured with tab size 4, as is
common in Windows. I'm concluding that the CPython programmers configure their
Visual Studio's to *nix convention. Or perhaps modern Visual Studio has default
tab size 8, it wouldn't surprise me (the best version was the MSVC 6.0 Developer
Studio, since then that IDE has only gone downhill being re-based on the Office
Assistant inspired "for dummies" IDE that Microsoft had for web designers).
Anyways, I would suggest converting all those tabs to spaces, as e.g. the Boost
library project does -- no tabs allowed.
That's much more platform-independent. :-)
Cheers,
- Alf
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