On May 20, 2009, at 4:24 AM,
don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Both, tabs and spaces,
work. mixing them doesn't. So you must make sure you only use one. which one you choose is more or less a matter of taste as Chris wrote.
>
> However, since mixing spaces and tabs is a bad idea it would be good if all (python) programmers could agree on one or the other. I believe that's why there is the python style guide I linked to earlier. It sets a precedent/convention.
>
> You can of course say you don't care and follow your own style but it will make it harder and more annoying for others.
>
> Therefore I would urge you to use spaces in python programs.
With no disrespect to either my exceedingly learned colleagues from Lilliput who use spaces, or my sublimely enlightened colleagues from Blefuscu who use tabs[1], this is Yet Another Pointlessly Time-Wasting Religious Schism.[2]
The only problem is that our computers, which can be so lightning-fast at replacing characters, cannot seem, even at
this late date in their evolution, to figure out when two lines are similarly indented and therefore execute our code without complaint. Their text-editing programs are only confounding the matter.
My meager solution has been to turn on an option that displays a faint glyph representing each tab. Therefore, when I open a file, I somewhat subliminally see which lines have an indenting problem, and I fix them.
Perhaps a better solution would be to agree on a spaces-tabs exchange rates, but this, also has its zealots. Some people use a tab to mean eight spaces, some four, and some two.
Is there some unix magic cookie format to explicate this exchange rate? If so, then the battle is mostly won, and we "merely" have to convince the myriad text editors to publish, honor, and obey the cookies, silently sorting out the indentations and replacing whichever with whatever.
If not, we "just" have to add the cookie format to Python's
spec.
[1] cf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness#Etymology[2] See also Endianness, above, Emacs versus vi, "brackets on new lines," etc.