Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!weretis.net!feeder1.news.weretis.net!news.swapon.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Gregory Ewing Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: Re: PEP8 and 4 spaces Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 18:35:04 +1200 Lines: 22 Message-ID: References: <53b5fd2f$0$29985$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net US8AC/RhAvhBqMVEUnQcgwIfw5bMArCQQVYMuJ0f4pmSNXvOEr Cancel-Lock: sha1:nT5uM1O3IDZZrWWIOY7guKcFx3A= User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.5 (Macintosh/20050711) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: <53b5fd2f$0$29985$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:73938 Steven D'Aprano wrote: > Disadvantages of tabs: > - Many standard Unix/Linux/POSIX tools have a hard time dealing with tabs. > > I call such tools *broken*, They're not broken, they're just using a different set of conventions. Unix traditionally uses tab characters as a form of space compression. The meaning of a tab is fixed, and configurable indentation is done by inserting a suitable combination of tabs and spaces. As long as *all* your tools follow that convention, everything is fine. The problems arise when you mix in tools that use different conventions. The truly broken tools IMO are things like mail handlers that shrink away in terror when they see a tab and remove it altogether. There's no excuse for that, as far as I can see. -- Greg