PEP8 and 4 spaces
Steven D'Aprano
steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info
Sun Jul 6 22:28:38 EDT 2014
On Mon, 07 Jul 2014 11:00:59 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> The makefile syntax is one of the excellent examples of why it's a
> terrible idea to use tab characters in source code.
Hmmm... I'm not sure that conclusion follows. I think that makefile
syntax is an example of why it is a terrible idea to give spaces and tabs
different semantics, not that tabs themselves are harmful.
> It's also an
> excellent example of how a poor design decision (a line beginning with
> U+0020 SPACE is semantically different from a line beginning with U+0009
> CHARACTER TABULATION) can be irrevocable
Yes. Design your public APIs cleanly and clearly from the start.
The story of makefiles is a warning of the dark side to "release early,
release often", and the dangers of using alpha software in production:
[quote]
Why the tab in column 1? Yacc was new, Lex was brand new. I hadn't tried
either, so I figured this would be a good excuse to learn. After getting
myself snarled up with my first stab at Lex, I just did something simple
with the pattern newline-tab. It worked, it stayed. And then a few weeks
later I had a user population of about a dozen, most of them friends, and
I didn't want to screw up my embedded base. The rest, sadly, is history.
-- Stuart Feldman
[end quote]
--
Steven
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