From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim X Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: underline-line Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:07:13 +1100 Organization: Rapt Technologies Message-ID: <87tyveirfi.fsf@lion.rapttech.com.au> References: <87k4wc7hru.fsf@Traian.DecebalComp> <87fx70peup.fsf@hubble.informatimago.com> <87pr635zr0.fsf@Traian.DecebalComp> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1261831596 17302 80.91.229.12 (26 Dec 2009 12:46:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:46:36 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 26 13:46:29 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NOW2O-00079S-9J for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 26 Dec 2009 13:46:28 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:46455 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NOW2O-0004EW-Bq for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:46:28 -0500 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!usenet.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!news2.glorb.com!news-xfer.nntp.sonic.net!news.astraweb.com!border2.newsrouter.astraweb.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.90 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:m6+mdOoRG7N+X8OaIRlw5JJg3PY= Original-Lines: 52 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 933dda90.news.astraweb.com Original-X-Trace: DXC=47=[H\`WGUSZio4aKR`fh\L?0kYOcDh@ZV=@K8]R_G:SNJj[A2jK=9V[XK99=b\o1R@g7 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:70870 Archived-At: Cecil Westerhof writes: > pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes: > >> Cecil Westerhof writes: >> There should be no problem with tabs, because there should be not tab >> in text files. > > I do not use them, but I know that other people do. Better to describe > the consequences then, so that people are not taken by surprise. > > >> The only place where prefix tabs are allowed, for historical reasons >> is in Makefile. > > I know a lot of people who use it for indenting and it is used for > 'tables'. But maybe I should give a warning when tabs are found in the > text. > But maybe I should document the function works with 'clean' text files. I personally don't think tabs are a problem What is a problem is when you get source files that have a mixture of tabs and spaces where they are not used consistently. Using tabs for indent can actuallly be very useful. If I'm working with a team and we all have different preferences for how large our code indents are, rather than forcing a standard indent size on all team members, we can just use tabs and each member can set the tab width to their preferred indent size i.e. 2 spaces, 4 spaces, 8 spaces etc. The problem is when you have some people indenting using spaces and some using tabs. Then all the indenting gets screwed up. I don't have an issue with tabs in Makefiles. The emacs Makefile mode can show tabs/spaces, so its easy to see when something is wrong/missing a leading tab. I doubt we can change make effectively. There are millions of lines of makefile code with tabs out there (I was told there are more lines of Makefile code out there than Ruby). Much of this code is in projects that are unlikely to have the inclination or resoruces to want to modify their Makefiles to remove the tabs. Changing make to handle just generic whitespace (i.e. space or tab) would be possible, but it won't remove tabs from the equation. We are pretty much stuck with them for the time being. Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au