From: Eric Schwartz <emschwar@...>
Date: 2003-08-12T09:00:32+09:00
Subject: Re: [Devculture] ruby question - try Python also (fwd)

Albert Wagner <alwagner@tcac.net> writes:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:00:12 +0900
> "MikkelFJ" <mikkelfj-anti-spam@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>> A religous concept, but spaces are IMHO best when source is shared between
>> multiple developers.
>
> Just curious why you would think that.  A tab can be be equivalent
> to any number of spaces, per the reader's preference.  Spaces force
> the reader to accept your idea of proper indentation. 

Because tabs can vary widely, and indenting that looks reasonable on
your system with tabs set to 3 spaces looks like crap on mine, where
it's set to 8.  As you point out, tabs *can* be set to display at any
number of spaces, but if people don't actually do that (and my
experience is that most people don't, but YMMV) then all the theory in
the world won't make ugly code non-ugly.

Whereas if you use spaces, it looks the same in everybody's editor, no
matter what that might be.  Unless they're using proportional fonts of
course, but that's evil, and you shouldn't accomodate evil.

-=Eric

P.S.: Please wrap your own lines (~72 characters is good); it's hard
      to read when it wraps around at random places, depending on the
      width of my newsreader.
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