From: Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk@...>
Date: 2005-03-23T08:17:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Any guides for good coding in Ruby? [OT] tabs vs. spaces

Martin Ankerl wrote:
>> I try to follow the style that is predominant in the Ruby parts of the
>> Ruby source.  Also, see:
> 
> I also do this, but there is one thing I cannot stand: every ruby lib 
> uses 2 spaces for indentation! IMHO it should be tabs, and *only* tabs. 
> This is much better, because in almost every editor it is possible to 
> set the tab width to whatever one likes. I hate 2 spaced sourcecode, 
> because I usually set one tab == 8 spaces, and use a non-fixed font.

Yay!  Let's start a tabs vs. spaces flame war!!

My view?  Tabs should never, ever be used in a file.  (Ever)  Can you 
have a source code file without spaces?  I doubt it.  Can you have a 
file without tabs?  Certainly.  Is mixing the two the main problem? 
Yup.  Use only spaces.

It's funny though.  I think this eternal flame war is related to the 
other eternal flame war: vi vs. emacs.  In Emacs, the 'tab' button is 
most often bound to 'indent-command'.  This and 'indent-region' makes it 
really easy to use spaces for indentation, and to adjust/fix someone 
else's indentation when it's bad.  On the other hand, I think vi makes 
it much harder to use spaces for indentation, so tabs seem more attractive.

Anyhow, before throwing in your views, at least read up on other 
people's arguments.  :)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22tabs%20vs%20spaces%22

Ben