Re: VIM config in PEAR files?

On Tue, 2002-04-16 at 15:36, Brent Cook wrote: > > printf("%s", > > $arg); > > ^^^^^^^ > > This is 7 spaces. That's one 4-space tab and 3 spaces. If displayed in > > some editor that has 8-space tabs by default, it will look like this: > > So, why not just use 7 spaces for that case? Tabs are not for formatting, > but for indenting. If you wanted to indent this code, do this: > > printf("%s", > ^^^^^^^$arg); Most editors auto-indent. It is completely unreasonable to expect from people that they should hand-fiddle spaces and tabs like you suggest. > > print("%s", > > $arg); > > > > Ditto with tabbed code written in an 8-space-tab editor viewed with > > 4-space tabs: > > > > > > if (foo && > > bar) { > > } > > > > Will look like this: > > > > if (foo && > > bar) { > > } > > It's the same straw argument. That is no reason to ban tabs entirely, just > a reason to not use tabs incorrectly. Both of these examples illustrate a > common mistake when using tabs that they are used to align text to other > text. This is not true. Tabs are only useful for indenting blocks of code > that are only aligned to the same block. Using tabs to align to characters > in a previous line is silly. Likewise, the point is not what you type, but what your editor does and how you configure it. > > In an environment like PEAR where people use lots of different editors, > > using tabs simply doesn't work. People will end up doing whitespace > > commits fixing rendering in their editor, while breaking it for others. > > Without tabs it will look the same to everyone. > > It doesn't work when people do not follow consistent conventions. That is > something to be contested. > > > Diff and less are tools that programmers use, so that argument is just > > bogus. > > Aren't we discussing this for the sake of programmers? Yes? Don't programmers do "cvs diff | less"? > Anyway, less has a configurable tab-widths and diff has options to > work-around your problem. > > >From less's man page: > > -xn or --tabs=n > Sets tab stops every n positions. The default for > n is 8. > > >From diff's man page: > > --expand-tabs > Expand tabs to spaces in the output, to preserve > the alignment of tabs in the input files. > > --initial-tab > Output a tab rather than a space before the text of > a line in normal or context format. This causes > the alignment of tabs in the line to look normal. I know that, but that only helps me, not everyone else. - Stig