Re: Spaces vs Tabs

The idea that you can only choose one is the root of the problem, IMO.

Tabs are indentation, spaces are alignment. Then you can set your tab width to anything and it all works.

If tab stops could be globally set at PI spaces wide, then this would be obvious.

In the end, you just go with the flow and clone whatever style is already there to get money.

Comment on Re: Spaces vs Tabs

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Spaces vs Tabs by shmem (Chancellor) on Jun 16, 2017 at 16:19 UTC
The idea that you can only choose one is the root of the problem, IMO. I'd say that the root of the problem is unfamiliarity with old typewriters, and the fact that the convention of tab stops defaulting to 8 spaces can so easily be overridden in the wrong way, yielding disastrous results. Tabs are indentation, spaces are alignment. The other way round that is. On the old typewriters, you could set stops for alignment of data skipping thus a fixed amount of spaces, mainly for filling out tables; whereas the indentation in typesetting e.g. at the beginning of a paragraph was done with spaces. perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'	[reply] [d/l]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re^2: Spaces vs Tabs
by shmem (Chancellor) on Jun 16, 2017 at 16:19 UTC

The idea that you can only choose one is the root of the problem, IMO.

I'd say that the root of the problem is unfamiliarity with old typewriters, and the fact that the convention of tab stops defaulting to 8 spaces can so easily be overridden in the wrong way, yielding disastrous results.

Tabs are indentation, spaces are alignment.

The other way round that is. On the old typewriters, you could set stops for alignment of data skipping thus a fixed amount of spaces, mainly for filling out tables; whereas the indentation in typesetting e.g. at the beginning of a paragraph was done with spaces.

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

[reply]
[d/l]

In Section Meditations