I hate you all

[Walter Hurry]

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:48:58 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2013-04-08, Nobody <nobody at nowhere.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:30:45 +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>
>>> Am I the only one here who has used a typewriter?
>>> 
>>> Tab stops were set manually, to a physical distance into the page,
>>> using a mechanical stop. This long predates the "rule" that tab stops
>>> are every 8 characters.
>>
>> And your point is?
> 
> The point is that there is little historical precedent for assuming that
> tab stops are evenly and equally spaced across the page (let alone one
> particular fixed, even spacing) -- and people who mix spaces and tabs
> based on such false assumptions are responsible for their own bleeding
> foot.
> 
>> Typewriters don't have a tab "character". The information regarding tab
>> stops is conveyed out-of-band from the typist to the typewriter, and
>> doesn't need to persist beyond the time taken to type the document.
> 
> And the same is true when you don't mix tabs and spaces when indenting
> Python code.  If you use tabs alone when indenting Python code it
> doesn't matter where the tabs are set -- they don't even have to be
> equally spaced -- the meaning of the source file is unambiguous.
> 
> If you mix tabs and spaces, then you've got to provide out-of-band
> information regarding the position of the tab stops in order to make the
> source code unambiguous.  Since there's no mechanism to provide that OOB
> tab stop info, mixed tabs and spaces isn't accepted.

Personally I have always used 4 spaces. I use it in SQL, shell scripts 
and Python. It makes code simple to read, and unambiguous.

The fact of Python enforcing it (or all tabs; a poor second choice) is *a 
good thing*, easy and natural IMHO. No need for "end if" or "end loop" or 
"fi". One wonders whether OP is simply trolling.