It seems that not everyone knows that the problem of spaces vs. tabs in source code was solved at least 15 years ago. Get with the nineties, folks! :-) "There can be only one!" method of source code indentation, which consists of the following maxims:
- tabs are always 8 characters
- indents are not tabs
- set your indents to whatever pleases you (Linus likes 8 chars, i like 4, some crazy people like 2)
- use indents when you write code, not tabs
Good source code editors already do this by providing indent (Ctrl-T), undent (Ctrl-D), shift left (<) and shift right (>) commands, and making up indents using the correct number of tabs and spaces.
From what i can tell, this doesn't differ that greatly from jwz's view, except that he's famous and i'm not, and therefore he's been sent a lot more badly-formatted code than i have, and he got sick of rejecting the patches on that basis. Maybe if i'm ever famous i'll care more. Until then, i'll just refuse to look at code from people who think that a tab is not 8 chars.
