Re: Whitespace cleanup, tab-width and religion.

[storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm)]

"Rajesh Vaidheeswarran" <rv@gnu.org> writes:

> As the author of whitespace.el, it was my intent to keep tabs at 8
> characters. 

I simply don't follow the logic of whitespace.el forcing tabs at a
fixed value if the value is customizable in Emacs.

If whitespace.el doesn't work correctly with basic Emacs' features,
we need to fix it.

BTW, after the release, we plan to make tabs even more dynamic than
given by tab-width, and in that case, a regexp is most likely
inadequate to detect tabs.  So a fix would probably make w-i-regexp
obsolete.

> To be clear, from whitespace.el's point of view, it is not relevant what the
> tab-width is set at. People set tab-widths to whatever they please on their
> favorite editors. 

favorite editor_s_ ?   Isn't this an Emacs package?

Shouldn't it _primarily_ work seamless with Emacs?

If people need code to interoperate with other editors, they probably
shouldn't change tab-width -- but in the specific case, Michaël actually
need to change tab-width because of interoperability issues!

So why make whitespace.el _enforce_ "standards" which are unnecessary at
best, and disruptive at worst.

>                   However, there is no way to portably move the definition
> of TAB across people and platforms, other than the value of 8 spaces. That
> is why this is a religious argument, and that is also why it is documented
> as such.

I don't see it as religious -- tab-width exists, so it's reality, and
there's no need to turn it into a religious issue.

>> >
>> > Also, putting w-i-regexp in a  Local Variable part produces a warning.
>> > And I don't really want to  force a certain value of this variable but
>> > just the amount of spaces it counts.
>> >
>>
>> Sounds like whitespace-indent-regexp should be marked as a safe local
>> variable.  Unless it is risky somehow ... ??

Do you object that that change?

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk