From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 31 12:08:53 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 24B3E1065688 for ; Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:08:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E1F08FC1A for ; Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:08:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-196-37-253.dynamic.qsc.de [92.196.37.253]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6688316C011C; Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:08:51 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id n2VC8jX3006630; Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:08:45 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:08:45 +0200 From: Polytropon To: William Gordon Rutherdale Message-Id: <20090331140845.a1ece3c0.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <49D202F0.9010104@utoronto.ca> References: <20090331025726.GA10888@thought.org> <20090331112122.ae329221.freebsd@edvax.de> <49D202F0.9010104@utoronto.ca> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Gary Kline , FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: Why?? (prog question) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:08:54 -0000 On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:48:00 -0400, William Gordon Rutherdale wrote: > Tabbing is the worst form of indentation. It is *much* better to use > spaces consistently. may I ask what exactly you mean by "consistently"? I've seen various opinions about how many spaces make up one indentation level, beginning from 1, over 4, up to 10. Where's the consistency, or is it defined on a per-programmer basis? And why is this much better? When I would compare both indentation forms, I'd say that tabbing is the better form because + you can set your individually preferred tab with using the settings of your editor, be it 1, 4 or 8, + you can change the indentation while you're coding, e. g. when the indentation level makes the code exceed the right margin of your editor's window, + you need more keypressing to get through the indentation with the spaces, one keypress per space, while you only need one keypress per tab (which equals one indentation level), + per indentation level only 1 byte is needed (tab = ASCII 9), while spacing requires more bytes, one per space (space = ASCII 32), + while you can convert tabs into spaces, you cannot easily convert spaces back into tabs, and finally + even FreeBSD uses the tabbing style. I'm aware that one can argue about where { is to be placed, but I don't see any valid reason to use spaces for indentation instead of tabs (which I would even call "standard"). It's a honest question: What are your arguments for using tabs? Hint: "it is *much* better" doesn't count. :-) // EDIT: added one further argument pro tab /* -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...