4 ms·

I wonder how Linus feels about tabs vs. spaces (I didn't read the entire post, so maybe he addressed it?)

mariocesar 6y ago
> And yes, we do use wide tabs, because that makes indentation something you can visually see in the structure at a glance and on a whole-function basis, rather than something you have to try to visually "line up" things for or count spaces. That is what he says
saagarjha 6y ago
The kernel uses 8-space tabs.
- ccmcarey 6y ago
  How do you mean 8 space tabs? Are tabs not single characters \t?
  - ordu 6y ago
    You can customize your text editor to show them as any number of spaces. Mostly people prefer tab-stops at each forth or eighth column.
    - dezgeg 6y ago
      In practice you get problems, because of the line length rule. I.e. if your editor is configured with four-space tabs and a line with one leading tab shows up in your editor having 79 characters, it will show up as 83 characters for others assuming the normal 8-space tabs thus breaking the line length rule. Not to mention that coding style may require that function calls broken to 2 lines must have the arguments aligned at the opening parenthesis. For example, breaking up foobarbaz(1, 2); into two lines would require having the second line start with <TAB><SPACE><SPACE>2); which would no longer look correct with 4-space tabs.
      - eMSF 6y ago
        >Not to mention that coding style may require that function calls broken to 2 lines must have the arguments aligned at the opening parenthesis. That doesn't result in any problems with using <TAB>s, unless the coding style also requires you to replace all (leading) sequences of N spaces with with a <TAB>, which is, IMO, quite brain-dead. For example, if (cond) { <TAB>foo(1, <TAB><SP><SP><SP><SP>2); } looks fine regardless of the width of <TAB>. Admittedly, your first problem remains; a problem with dumb editors. In truth, your editor could well signal if your lines exceed the limit (indent-width*indent + rest) you have set for your project, just as easily as it can draw a line at a column. The harder problem is that you need a context-aware editor for it to help you with indenting. Most editors are incapable of that by default.
        dezgeg 6y ago
        > unless the coding style also requires you to replace all (leading) sequences of N spaces with with a <TAB>, which is, IMO, quite brain-dead It is brain-dead, but that is exactly what is required in many styles.
billsnow 6y ago
In the post he refers to "wide tabs" which means hard tabs displayed 8 chars long. This has been the standard kernel style since the beginning.

> And yes, we do use wide tabs, because that makes indentation something you can visually see in the structure at a glance and on a whole-function basis, rather than something you have to try to visually "line up" things for or count spaces. That is what he says

saagarjha 6y ago

The kernel uses 8-space tabs.

ccmcarey 6y ago
How do you mean 8 space tabs? Are tabs not single characters \t?
- ordu 6y ago
  You can customize your text editor to show them as any number of spaces. Mostly people prefer tab-stops at each forth or eighth column.
  - dezgeg 6y ago
    In practice you get problems, because of the line length rule. I.e. if your editor is configured with four-space tabs and a line with one leading tab shows up in your editor having 79 characters, it will show up as 83 characters for others assuming the normal 8-space tabs thus breaking the line length rule. Not to mention that coding style may require that function calls broken to 2 lines must have the arguments aligned at the opening parenthesis. For example, breaking up foobarbaz(1, 2); into two lines would require having the second line start with <TAB><SPACE><SPACE>2); which would no longer look correct with 4-space tabs.
    - eMSF 6y ago
      >Not to mention that coding style may require that function calls broken to 2 lines must have the arguments aligned at the opening parenthesis. That doesn't result in any problems with using <TAB>s, unless the coding style also requires you to replace all (leading) sequences of N spaces with with a <TAB>, which is, IMO, quite brain-dead. For example, if (cond) { <TAB>foo(1, <TAB><SP><SP><SP><SP>2); } looks fine regardless of the width of <TAB>. Admittedly, your first problem remains; a problem with dumb editors. In truth, your editor could well signal if your lines exceed the limit (indent-width*indent + rest) you have set for your project, just as easily as it can draw a line at a column. The harder problem is that you need a context-aware editor for it to help you with indenting. Most editors are incapable of that by default.
      - dezgeg 6y ago
        > unless the coding style also requires you to replace all (leading) sequences of N spaces with with a <TAB>, which is, IMO, quite brain-dead It is brain-dead, but that is exactly what is required in many styles.

billsnow 6y ago

In the post he refers to "wide tabs" which means hard tabs displayed 8 chars long. This has been the standard kernel style since the beginning.