[Tutor] tabs or spaces (the endless debate!)

[Erik Price]

On Saturday, February 15, 2003, at 03:05  PM, R. Alan Monroe wrote:

>> hard tabs cause needless headaches for people who don't
>> use exactly the same tools that you use.
>
> I will take your word for it, but why is this the case? In my mind, a
> tab character is a fixed, known ascii character around the world.
> Everyone knows what it is, and if you indent with one, you KNOW that
> line is to be indented once. With two, you know definitively that line
> is to be indented twice, etc. With spaces, they may be damaged during
> transport from mail program to mail program, and nobody sets their
> editor for the same number of spaces. The tab just seems more
> explicit and safer.
>

Because if you write your code to wrap at 79 chars (which is a good 
idea for readability) then whether a tab is 4 or 8 chars matters (and 
diff't environments use diff't sizes for tabs).




Erik



-- 
Erik Price

email: erikprice@mac.com
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