[Pythonmac-SIG] Re[2]: BBEdit questions

[Chris Barker]

"Louis M. Pecora" wrote:

> >>>space. That is sort of annoying, any workarounds besides always
> > >>using tabs instead of spaces?
> 
> Just use Tabs and set BBEdit tabs to 4 spaces or whatever you want.

This is really only a good option is you only use a Mac, don't share
code with people on other systems, or use other people's code. If you do
want to use tabs, I HIGHLY recommend that you set tabs to 8 spaces so
you have WYSIWYG indenting. Another option is to keep "show invisibles"
on so that you are immediately aware that you have mixed them up if you
do. Also, make sure you have easy access to a tabs-to-spaces and
spaces-to-tabs converter. I have one I can post if people want it.

It was a mistake to ever allow mixed tabs+spaces indenting, but we are
stuck with that legacy now. The solution on every other platform is to
establish the four-spaces-for-an-indent convention, and it works just
fine everywhere but the Mac. I'm still not sure why there seems to be a
dirth of fully capable programmer's editors for the Mac, but both BBedit
and Pepper seem so close that all we need to do is solve this tiny
problem. (perhaps it's solved for Pepper already; unfortunately the demo
version is so annoyingly crippled that I haven't really checked it out).
It must be possible to somehow configure BBedit to indent intelligently
with spaces. If not, perhaps a string of requests to BareBones from
every one of us will persuade them to add this capability. In fact,
while consistent and easy indenting is more critical in Python than
other languages, smart indenting is useful in all languages, it's
amazing to me that BBedit doesn't support it.

I guess It'll be back to emacs on OS-X for me for a while. It's funny, I
use emacs for everything on Linuxeven though I don't particularly like
it, but it has a powerful mode for every language I write, and that is
invaluable. I have never found another editor on any platform that
supports everything I need (Python, Perl, LateX, BibTeX, MATLAB,
Fortran, C, C++ HTML, etc. etc.)

OT: does anyone know if BBedit has a decent LaTeX mode? I am on the
verge of buying it despite my other complaints.

-Chris

-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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