[pacman-dev] script spaces/tabs, modelines, etc.

[Roman Kyrylych]

2006/12/18, Dan McGee <dpmcgee at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Ehm... I'm not a vim user, so I don't know exactly what ts=2 sw=2 noet
> > means, but...
> This means that tabstops (ts) are set to equal the width of 2 spaces,
> and shiftwidth (sw) is also set to 2 spaces. It is a bit harder to
> explain the difference between these two things, but for most purposes
> you set them to the same value. The 'no expand tab' (noet) setting
> keeps tabs as tabs and does not convert them to spaces.

Thanks for the info. :)

> > personally I never use tabs because of thouse indenting issues, so I
> > want to ask [silly] question:
> > why to use tabs at all? why not to indent with space chars only?
> Here is my take, and this is where you have ridiculous no-win debates
> on the subject. Tabs should be used for structuring your syntax, such
> as in loops and conditional statements. If you use spaces only, you
> are making everyone that reads your code abide by your particular
> preference (2 spaces, 4, 8, etc). With tabs anyone is free to change
> the default (which is also an assumption made by spaces that a tab is
> always x characters).
>
> To sum up my position, and at least what seems to be the position of
> the current pacman codebase with already existing modelines: tabs are
> used for indenting, spaces are used for spacing.

I agree with your position (I hope there wiill be no contributors that
will mix tabs and spaces for indenting). But aren't there problems
with diffs?

-- 
Roman Kyrylych (Роман Кирилич)