3 ms·

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.

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.