-----Original Message----- From: Dimitrie O. Paun [mailto:dpaun@rogers.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 10:04 AM To: Medland, Bill; Wine devel (E-mail) Subject: Re: Coding standards
On November 27, 2002 12:45 pm, Medland, Bill wrote:
which is what I hate. This is the worst of both worlds.
Either use Tabs
throughout so that a tab equals an indent and so people can
set the tab
size to whatever they like or else don't use tabs at all
and use explicit
spaces.
And what's so bad about mixing spaces and tabs? Using only tabs is (1) hard/impossible to enforce, and (2) still suffers from deviation from the standard. It maybe workable in a company, but not on the internet.
On the other hand, what's the big deal with mixing tabs and spaces? What's the big loss as compared to only spaces? This is just trying to impose (silly) policy on people. As long as we stick to the standard meaning of tab (which is 8, there's no question about it. What do you get when you send a file to the printer? Or open it in a non-customized editor?), there is no need whatsoever to force people into this or that way. And this without a loss for anyone!
Why do people feel a need to force others into certain way of doing things, when the end result is the same?!? This is like forcing people to QWERTY instead of DVORAK... I'm not against standards, I would actually like if we had more uniform looking code, but this is really unnecessary, as it serves no purpose.
-- Dimi.
Sorry if you thought I wanted to force people to do something "my way"; that is far from the truth. Personally I work hard at using four space indent and no tabs at all. (I have experience of working with a lot of code maintained by some people who work with a four-space tab and some who work with 8 and so am fed up with having to keep swapping between two settings. Therefore I try and avoid tabs.) However my own opinion is that one should fit in with the existing local conventions.
You are right; provided everyone sticks to 8-space tabs then it doesn't matter. But if one only uses spaces then it doesn't matter one way or the other. I merely offer this as a suggestion for people to consider.
Bill
On November 27, 2002 04:28 pm, Medland, Bill wrote:
You are right; provided everyone sticks to 8-space tabs then it doesn't matter. But if one only uses spaces then it doesn't matter one way or the other. I merely offer this as a suggestion for people to consider.
Sorry Bill,
It wasn't directed at you (even though I realize now it looked that way). It was just my daily rant, and when I was writing, I remember an idiot PHB at a place I worked: on the first day he started he came to me: "What environment/editor are people using?" he asked me "Whatever they want: some use J Builder, other Emacs, I use vim, etc." "Oh, that _has_ to change!" he said immediately "Why?" I asked "Well, ..., because, ..., we have to have standards!" "Why?" "Because... eh,... so we don't have anarchy" "F*ck off!" I laughed, "Go mind your own business." But I was in a privileged position then, and I realized how become engulfed in this myriad of useless standards and procedures all over the place, yet people miss the important stuff most of the time.
So don't mind me, I just had to get it off my chest. :)))
-
Dimitrie O. Paun -
Medland, Bill