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	  id LAA13156; Sat, 1 Mar 1997 11:28:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Henrich <henrich@crh.cl.msu.edu>
Message-Id: <199703011628.LAA13156@crh.cl.msu.edu>
Subject: Re: mail.local modifications?
To: nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams)
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 11:28:39 -0500 (EST)
Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, bde@zeta.org.au, freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199703010718.AAA18610@rocky.mt.sri.com> from Nate Williams at "Mar 1, 97 00:18:23 am"
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>
> If the program was written with tabs (as most programs are), and a
> person uses spaces in their diff, it makes things really obnoxious when
> someone brings it up in an editor that has tabs set to be 4-spaces wide.
>
> If you don't keep the style consistant, you end up with sources that
> look like this (an exaggeration obviously).

[snip]

> (Although, some of us prefer 4-space tabs. :)

I very much understand that, I am a extreme stickler in my organization when it
comes to following style guidlines as well.  Actually I almost think your made
up "bad" example is more readable :)  I Absolutely abhor tabs for the exact
problem of some people use 4 space tabs, other 8, other 6, other 2, which makes
lining up adjacent lines almost damn near impossible unless also indented to
whatever tab spacing is currently operating.

Bruce, I must apologize for getting as miffed as I did as fast as I did, bad
timing on several incidents came together at once.  Might I suggest perhaps in
the future that if you say something like "Thanks for the patch, I looked it
over, it had one small problem.  You used spaces instead of tabs which makes
the patch fall out of style on that piece of code.  I changed those few lines
and submitted it.  In the future please try and follow closely the style of the
existing piece of code you are working on, for more details you can also take a
look at style(9)."

To everyone:  I reviewed the section on submitting patches before submitting
it, nowhere did it mention the style man page.  On top of it, the style man
page doesnt mention spaces vs. tabs (or at least searching the pages for tab
didnt find anything on my copy :)

-Crh

       Charles Henrich     Michigan State University     henrich@msu.edu

                         http://pilot.msu.edu/~henrich