editor wars

Daniel Néri daniel.neri@REDACTED
Thu May 17 16:59:56 CEST 2001


Robert Virding <rv@REDACTED> writes:

> It depends what you mean by 'tab'.  If you mean typing the TAB
> character then that usually means "tab to the next tab stop" where
> the next tab stop is application dependant.  The TAB character in a
> file also means "tab to the next tab stop" where the next tab stop
> is commonly is the next 8th character position.

True. I was disregarding the tab stop concept...

> Emacs, and many other editors, keep the two separate.  Pressing the
> TAB key moves to the next tab stop by inserting a suitable number of
> TAB characters and spaces keeping the "standard" meaning of the TAB
> character.  This is sensible and portable.

Yes, but my original point was that, even though your editor acts
sensibly in this regard, if you set the "tab width" to anything not
equal to 8, you will most likely produce text that renders badly for a
majority of people. Especially when it comes to source code.

The most portable approach is of course to setup your editor to
automatically "expand" tabs to spaces when buffers are flushed, as
recommended in

    http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html



Best wishes,
   --Daniel

-- 
Daniel Neri                                      mailto:dn@REDACTED
Sigicom AB, Sweden                              http://www.sigicom.com




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