Re: perlstyle and portability

[Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@ActiveState.com>]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 03:15:08 GMT, Hugo wrote:
>In <200001300236.SAA15521@maul.activestate.com>, Gurusamy Sarathy writes:
>:I consider putting "set ts=4" in .exrc simply a bad idea, because
>:you're choosing to be non-standard by default.
>
>Well, you call it 'non-standard', I call it 'sensible': most people
>I know have an indent width they are most comfortable with, and by no
>means all of them pick 4. They can view my code at the width they find
>comfortable by setting a tabstop appropriately; they don't have that
>choice with the Perl source code.

I guess there are three camps here then:

  1. don't care, but leave ts=8 alone dammit!
  2. only spaces for indents dammit!
  3. only tabs for indents dammit!

Note that:

  * camp #1 is generous about accepting code from both camp #2 or #3.
  * #2 and #3 are both difficult to implement for an open source project,
    because they require strict enforcement of editor settings/user
    habits.
  * code from both camps #1 and #2 can be sent to a printer or cat-ed
    to a terminal without getting confusing/wrapped.
  * code from #2 looks the same everywhere regardless of tabstop,
    because they don't use no steenking tabs.
  * code from #3 allows users to customize how the code looks in an
    editor that allows changing ts (but loses when you send it to a
    printer).  camps #1 and #2 must mandate an indent width in
    practice (e.g., sw=4 for Perl source)

I'm firmly in camp #1, and see little reason for changing anything.


Sarathy
gsar@ActiveState.com

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Follow-Ups from:

Matt Sergeant <matt@sergeant.org>
Hugo <hv@crypt.compulink.co.uk>
Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafayette.edu>

References to:

Hugo <hv@crypt.compulink.co.uk>

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