[TxMt] Re: Indent size different from tab size

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On Nov 8, 2006, at 10:41 PM, Jacob Rus wrote:

> Let me clarify...
>
> Jacob Rus wrote:
>> Curt Sampson wrote:
>>> It's not just emacs; this is very common in vi as well. [...]
>>>
>>> 1. There's no standard for carrying the tab size around with the  
>>> file. Given any file, there's no way to tell if it uses 8 or 4  
>>> column tabs without manually inspecting it. [...]
>
> This is an argument against using tabs at all
>
>>> In this situation, if you're not using the original coders [sic]  
>>> tab size, you end up with the stuff at the right-hand not lining up.
>
> This is also an argument against using tabs
>
>> Ok, fine.  Changing tab size could be bad, if someone still is  
>> using some random editor no one has ever heard of, which can't  
>> handle any tab size other than 8.  So what's the benefit to coding  
>> like this instead of just using spaces?  Is it just saving a few  
>> bytes?
>
> To clarify my statement, so there are no ruffled feathers: Every  
> editor worth its salt can interpret tabs to be any desired size.   
> This includes bbedit, emacs, vim, and textmate.  But emacs (and  
> apparently vim) want to do this odd dance where you use 4-space  
> tabs, but replace pairs of them with literal tab characters to save  
> 7 bytes.  This just seems absurd to me.  Can you give any rational  
> explanation why anyone would want to do this?

Back in the old days, saving 7 bytes was even more significant than  
those two bytes you saved by not storing the year on dates (pre-Y2K).

God I feel old sometimes...

S