Re: [gentoo-dev] About how many spaces a tab represents

[Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org>]

>>>>> On Sun, 14 Apr 2013, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

> On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:22:04 +0200
> Pacho Ramos <pacho@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> It stated a tab represents 4 spaces. Where does this rule come from?
>> Why 8 spaces wasn't chosen instead? I say that because looks like 8
>> spaces equivalence is used by tools like "cat", "less", even CVS
>> reports in gentoo-commits show tabs as 8 spaces instead of 4. 

> Hysterical raisins. Unfortunately drobbins mandated it that way early
> on, because he didn't use a proper text editor.

AFAIK, there's no standard that specifies the positions of tab stops,
so multiples of 4 are as good as anything else. Different text editors
have different defaults (Emacs uses multiples of 8, but it's easy to
change).

Of course, once you have a convention that is widely followed, it's
wise not to change it ...

Ulrich