Imposed indentation standards don't work

David Dyer-Bennet ddb at ns.UUCP
Fri Dec 30 07:59:47 AEST 1988


In article <WJC.88Dec27163645 at ho5cad.ho5cad.ATT.COM> ho5cad!wjc writes:
:Indenting is
:done with tabs, right?  Not spaces, and not combos of spaces and tabs,
:right?

No, indentation is done with white space.  Due to inconsistent
interpretations by various hardware and software tools, the only
reliable representation for white space is as "spaces" and "tabs"
with an implicit 8-character tab presetting.  And you could argue that
tabs were too risky.  

The one thing you should NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, do is treat
the tab character as something other than a "move to the next 8-column
boundary" command.  If you do, your indentation will be very badly
garbled on many, many video and hardcopy output devices.  Most.  Nearly
all.

-- 
	-- David Dyer-Bennet
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