Tabs -vs- Spaces: Tabs should have won.

[Andrew Berg]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

On 2011.07.17 02:56 AM, Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> What is the difference between indentation and alignment? Well, 
> indentation works with tabs, alignment not.
The use of spaces for indentation is as much of a hack as the use of
tabs for alignment is. Not everyone agrees on how many spaces an indent
should be (whether an indent is a tab or a space-tab), which is a good
reason to use tabs. In fact, spaces have absolutely /no/ advantage over
tabs when it comes to pure indentation. It may be possible to configure
an editor to compensate using space-tabs (and perhaps even detect the
length of indents, changing the number of spaces to conform to what the
reader thinks is the right number of spaces per indent), but this is all
to make a pretty delicate environment just to be even with tabs.
On the flip side, tabs can't maintain alignment because again, not
everyone agrees on how big a tab should be. This is a good reason to use
spaces. Using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment solves the
problem. I really can't think of any problems this would cause that
aren't superficial.
> The author's conclusion "simply just use what ever you want for 
> indenting, but use spaces for aligning" leaves only two choices for 
> Python programmers: use spaces for indenting or don't align.
It's possible to indent with tabs and align with spaces in Python; see
my earlier post.

- -- 
CPython 3.2.1 | Windows NT 6.1.7601.17592 | Thunderbird 5.0
PGP/GPG Public Key ID: 0xF88E034060A78FCB
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iQEcBAEBAwAGBQJOIp8PAAoJEPiOA0Bgp4/LpjYIAIa+Qpw+1Uhsdv8R3NkH4yat
h7axOgwpq2SqbU9KsJpmJbC737C2JWj3GrCzkSfExjlrG2Wv5qB7U5hgFbJVeTU/
1paBZtXP0BZgXLEeZwlIKJDT3HF28sj7GCMFoP6KhX0v7oe7BsaRyriIBAQWX4Hh
p8NrMfr16tkGQXFmTPyu5UHdiCX35/9ywR1hw96h4H1J6sht1Q6N47Xx4EI4DN/X
eU5wY7qrJPjinYD7N3uQGpRhHKjTIAWRSPxFtN6voP9Y+6KGPH+e2eDFV06h8Hi1
/tPQtbfWROdN1c10TL57FDBqW+Q32gMB3z60/XMPWhB5Mz0a/dFLou5bdDhvtvc=
=w8GN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----