Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 22:56:02 -0800 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: C coding editor Message-ID: <200303012256.02533.wes@softweyr.com> In-Reply-To: <20030301231216.GD47955@gothmog.gr> References: <20030221122103.GA2073@asterix.local> <3E5F85B3.268BD21C@mindspring.com> <20030301231216.GD47955@gothmog.gr>
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On Saturday 01 March 2003 03:12 pm, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> On 2003-02-28 07:52, Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > Wes Peters wrote:
> > > No, but your editor really ought to be able to interpret tab
> > > stops correctly at like 0.5 in increments. Code editors on the
> > > Mac have been doing this for years.
> >
> > If editors like this were more common, it would be a lot easier to
> > justify use of proportional fonts in coding editors. I don't think
> > anyone really cares how many characters there are after a tabstop,
> > so long as the visual layout is uniform to the left of the code.
> > If you use indentation, this still works, no mater what your font,
> > as long as there are fixed indentations per tab (IMO).
>
> True, true. The printouts of code created with literate programming
> tools like tangle/weave and their many offsprings are very easy to
> read if indentation has constant width.
>
> The font of the program text isn't really important, as long as
> nesting isn't horribly broken by someone who typed the wrong number
> of spaces instead of just hitting tab.
But the font of the program text *is* important if you are considering
readability. We use variable-width fonts for books and printed matter
because they are easier to read than monospaced fonts.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters wes@softweyr.com
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