Simon wrote:
There's no reason not to use 8 column tab stops, so please don't do it.
Ok, if "it just looks better to me" is no reason, then the following also holds: There's no reason not to use braces and semicolons, so please use them.
but it will be interpreted differently by a Haskell compiler.
That's exactly my point. I consider it harmful, to put it mildly.
Tab characters are a primitive compression mechanism, nothing more.
Well, layout rule may be regarded as an even more primitive compression mechanism, since it saves fewer bytes than tabs. (Remember that "it looks better" was outlawed before.) I have the impression that the view is somewhat biased toward the layout. Nobody seems to care about the trouble that is luring in the long run. You can't go professional with "use another editor", "change your long established habits", "don't use diff -b". Cheers, Ingo
Ingo Wechsung
Simon wrote:
There's no reason not to use 8 column tab stops, so please don't do it.
Ok, if "it just looks better to me" is no reason,
Tabs and spaces aren't visually distinguishable, so I'm not sure why you conclude that "looks don't matter". As has been pointed out, how the tab character is displayed doesn't have to be related to what happens when you press the ->| button.
then the following also holds: There's no reason not to use braces and semicolons, so please use them.
I think braces/semicolons are unnecessary clutter. But if configuring your editor is too much trouble, feel free to use them. I don't really want this to become yet another editor flame war, but is the reason I don't have trouble with layout that a) I use sane layout conventions b) I use Emacs with a sane haskell-mode instead of a vi clone c) I'm almost entirely restricted to working as a one-person-team I'd like your opinions, private mail is fine, and I can summarize if anybody wants. -kzm -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
G'day all. Simon wrote:
There's no reason not to use 8 column tab stops, so please don't do it.
On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 02:52:13PM +0100, Ingo Wechsung wrote:
Ok, if "it just looks better to me" is no reason,
As Simon pointed out, spaces and tabs are visually indistinguishable. 4-column tab stops look no different from multiples of 4-spaces, or a combination of 8-column tab stops and 4 spaces where appropriate. The only thing I can think that you mean by this is that editing code which is already formatted in 8 column indents (i.e. other peoples' code) looks better to you when formatted in 4 column indents. That may be true, but you're breaking their coding standard. Cheers, Andrew Bromage
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Andrew J Bromage -
Ingo Wechsung -
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