Re: [gentoo-dev] Ebuild indentation (tabs vs. spaces) fascism ;^)

[William McArthur <sandymac@gentoo.org>]

Arcady Genkin wrote:
> Two questions:
> 
> 1. What makes tabbed indentation in ebuilds so much better than
>    indentation with spaces?  I know *plenty* of reasons *against* using
>    tab characters, but I must be missing something obvious, because I
>    know no reasons in favor of tabs.

I have no preference of one over the other but I prefer one over both.

> 2. Even if it turns out tabs are somehow better than spaces, why do
>    we want to be so fascist[1][2] about it?  Why don't we let the ebuild
>    maintainer to decide which approach suits his philosophy, editor and
>    habits?  We can still require that all indents are 4 spaces wide; I'm
>    only talking about tabs/spaces issue.

Because any large project must maintain a level of consistencey. While 
tab vs spaces is a minor issue it is part of a larger whole and as such 
is important. My mother used to pound in to me: "Mind your pennies and 
your dollars will take care of themselves." I don't know who she was 
quoting but the same logic applies here.

Where there isn't any place I know of the specificly spells out the 
tab/space usage in an ebuild if you look at /usr/portage/skel.ebuild you 
will see that tabs are uses.

> Footnotes: 
> [1]  Talking about bulk force-tabbifying ebuilds.
> [2]  Please note the smiley in the subject line before you stone me
>      for my choice of words.

Sandy McArthur