Re: underline-line

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:

> Cecil Westerhof <Cecil@decebal.nl> writes:
>
>> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>>
>>> Cecil Westerhof <Cecil@decebal.nl> writes:
>>> There should be no problem with tabs, because there should be not tab
>>> in text files.
>>
>> I do not use them, but I know that other people do. Better to describe
>> the consequences then, so that people are not taken by surprise.
>>
>>
>>> The only place where prefix tabs are allowed, for historical reasons
>>> is in Makefile.  
>>
>> I know a lot of people who use it for indenting and it is used for
>> 'tables'. But maybe I should give a warning when tabs are found in the
>> text.
>> But maybe I should document the function works with 'clean' text files.
>
> I personally don't think tabs are a problem What is a problem is when
> you get source files that have a mixture of tabs and spaces where they
> are not used consistently. 
>
> Using tabs for indent can actuallly be very useful. If I'm working with
> a team and we all have different preferences for how large our code
> indents are, rather than forcing a standard indent size on all team
> members, we can just use tabs and each member can set the tab width to
> their preferred indent size i.e. 2 spaces, 4 spaces, 8 spaces etc. 

C-x h C-M-\

I'd even put the equivalent in find-file-hook...
(and possibly the same in save-file-hook with the project parameters).



> The problem is when you have some people indenting using spaces and some
> using tabs. Then all the indenting gets screwed up. 
>
> I don't have an issue with tabs in Makefiles. The emacs Makefile mode
> can show tabs/spaces, so its easy to see when something is wrong/missing
> a leading tab. 
>
> I doubt we can change make effectively. There are millions of lines of
> makefile code with tabs out there (I was told there are more lines of
> Makefile code out there than Ruby). Much of this code is in projects
> that are unlikely to have the inclination or resoruces to want to modify
>  their Makefiles to remove the tabs. Changing make to handle just
>  generic whitespace (i.e. space or tab) would be possible, but it won't
>  remove tabs from the equation. We are pretty much stuck with them for
>  the time being.

Makefile:2:warning TAB used instead of space
Makefile:3:warning TAB used instead of space
Makefile:4:warning TAB used instead of space
Makefile:6:warning TAB used instead of space
Makefile:7:warning TAB used instead of space
...


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/