Re: Request For Comments: 3-space indentation style

[Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@...>]

On Sunday, January 5, 2014, Coda Highland  wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 12:45 PM, William Ahern
> <william@25thandclement.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 05, 2014 at 03:12:24PM -0500, phlnc8 wrote:
> >> Let's bring some rationality here :-)
> >>
> >> 3-space indent is nice with 'if' statements because the condition is
> >> nicely aligned with the first statement after 'then'.
> >
> > Indentation and alignment are two separate issues. We can _all_ agree that
> > blocks should be indented, just not what the width should be. Use tabs and
> > _every_ can be made happy by setting their tab stop.
> >
> > If you prefer a particular alignment when wrapping statements, expressions,
> > and comments, then align them--using spaces. It's far easier for people to
> > deal with quirky alignments then it is to deal with quirky and annoying
> > indentation. And because alignments can be very complex--with invariably
> > corner cases that require you to violate your own rules--editors do a
> > horrible job of reflowing alignments of complex statements, so better to
> > just disable that feature (please!).
> >
> > If you use tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment, then when people
> > change their tab stop your alignment will still magically work.
>
> Unless you're writing Python code.
>
> /s/ Adam

Yes. Let us rejoice in liberty from the tyranny of meaningful white space and drink well from the full ASCII table, including space's brother: tab. 

#?*% Python was the inspiration of the rant that I had heard, actually. He was blaming Python for people's insistence on using space. Write or wrong, it was a solid rant. Best I've heard, actually. 

-Andrew

(At least we're not arguing for a type system or lambda notation or a ternary operator...)