[TxMt] Re: Just starting to call myself a full time TM uses, general

[Scott Haneda]

>> 4) I am liking soft tabs a lot, as they seem to allow me to align
>> things better, and when files move to other places, they stay lined  
>> up
>> regardless of the tab stop setting.  I was happily working in 4  
>> spaces
>> per tab stop, and wanted to move to 5, changing it did nothing.  I  
>> had
>> to convert spaces to tabs, then make the change.  I am not entirely
>> sure what I did really.  Can someone give me a primer or point me to
>> docs on how this works?
>
> I think changing your soft tab amount is only a forward operation.
> Since it is only inserting spaces for you it probably can't figure
> what what it inserted as spaces and what you did.  Might I recommend
> using real tabs instead (/ducks!)?  :)

I used to use tabs all the time, and was a tabs over spaces guy, but  
found my files to be a mix of tabs and spaces.  I want things to line  
up where I want them to line up.  If I use tabs, they seem to dictate  
how things will line up.

I will usually tab in the leading tabs I want, and then use spaces to  
shift things where I want them to be.

Example:
$sql = SELECT foo, far, baz
FROM balh
WHERE foo = '1'

Example using tabs:
$sql = SELECT foo, far, baz
       FROM balh
       WHERE foo = '1'

As you can see, the S in Select is one off, so I would have to tab  
them all in more:

Example using more tabs:
$sql = 		SELECT foo, far, baz
       		FROM balh
       		WHERE foo = '1'

This is ok, but falls apart of me in more complex cases.  Then, if I  
ever change the tab stops, things never line up again. If they are all  
spaces, and also how simple TM makes it for me to move from tabs to  
spaces and spaces to tabs if I have to give the files to someone else,  
makes soft tabs seem right for me.

The spaces sort of lock my formatting down, which in my case I like.   
I know it is an age old debate, and I am not trying to sway anyone :)   
I just wanted to explain my logic in why I have grown to like this  
method.  In the past it was a lot of tab tab tab space space space  
operations, I can now use tabs to line it all up, drop in a space or  
two, and no matter what the tab stops are later, it all lines up nice.

>> 7) Any of you care to share your top #1 little tricks, the one thing
>> you use all the time, that just makes you happy every time you invoke
>> it?  I mainly work in php, so leaning on things that would be helpful
>> in that area would be nice.  Second would be bash, and lately, for
>> some odd reason, I have been spending some time in TCL, but not much,
>> so I am not sure how many tricks in there would benefit me in the  
>> long
>> run.
>
> By far my most valuable feature is cmd-t (go to file).  Also, the
> cmd-opt-[ (indent line) works rather well for me.  I've also written a
> couple custom commands that I find very useful (e.g., open up docs
> based on selected word, statically analyze code, etc).


I just looked in the apple doc machine thing for tm, indent line is  
not something I can locate, can you tell me what it is for.  I opened  
a file, invoked it, and it just beeped it me.
--
Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *