Comments on: What hope hath man / who takes up arms / against h'brother / for space only?

What hope hath man / who takes up arms / against h'brother / for space only?

hoverboards don't work on water — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:30:03 -0800

Tabs vs Spaces or Tabs or Spaces? Why, Tabs and Spaces! No, Tabs! No, Spaces! No, no, no - Tabs Tabs Tabs! Nuh-uh, Spaces Spaces Spaces! Spaces, not Tabs. Tabs and Spaces! Tabs! Spaces! Tabs! Spaces! Tabs! Spaces! Tabs! Spaces! Tabs! Tabs! Modelines?

By: Aquaman

Aquaman — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:35:03 -0800

Context! Context context context!

By: mrmojoflying

mrmojoflying — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:49:09 -0800

The perfect example of a FPP that I don't quite understand and will never read.

By: mrmojoflying

mrmojoflying — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:49:37 -0800

...Cute though.

By: hoverboards don't work on water

hoverboards don't work on water — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:54:50 -0800

OK then, the idea is that people will insist on having passionate, raving arguments over the silliest, most trivial things, suggesting the question: what is the point in arguing the big issues if we can't even agree on the little ones? Other than that, yes, it's pretty inane, but I'm a sucker for geek minutiae. Next up: Frostbrand vs Grayswandir!

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:56:11 -0800

Tabs. I like this post but wouldn't need to see a bunch of lookalikes any time soon.

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:59:05 -0800

Stormbringer, duh.

By: crysflame

crysflame — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:00:17 -0800

Several of these links subsequently link to at least one of the links above, either in the article or in the comments.

By: TwelveTwo

TwelveTwo — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:03:03 -0800

wolfdog No? I was working on one about vim and emacs.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:03:46 -0800

When in my text editor, tabs. When in a textarea, spaces. Unless I'm in OS X Safari, in which Opt-Tab produces a tab.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:06:24 -0800

i can't get tabs to work in the comment box, so it'll have to be spaces

By: brownpau

brownpau — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:06:42 -0800

By: danb

danb — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:06:49 -0800

Tabs, unless it's Wednesday.

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:06:56 -0800

Tabs, but displayed as 4 spaces-width. (Thank you IDEs).

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:10:35 -0800

Can you set this FPP to a tune? Maybe combine it with the drumline FPP?

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:10:46 -0800

Tabs. Also, vi (not emacs), Linux (not BSD), stirred (not shaken).

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:11:45 -0800

Visual studio does it all for me...

By: shoepal

shoepal — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:14:20 -0800

gold.

By: juiceCake

juiceCake — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:18:28 -0800

I favour tabs, others spaces.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:25:10 -0800

Tabs. When it absolutely, positively has to line-up.

By: quin

quin — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:30:53 -0800

Also, vi (not emacs), Linux (not BSD), stirred (not shaken). Ah, my old nemeses, we meet again. emacs, bsd, shaken. But i will agree with you on tabs.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:38:22 -0800

Actually, twelvetwo, I'd kinda like to see that. vi.

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:38:25 -0800

Nnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd. Also tabs, width:2. Being a MS droid, the only thing I found of use in Linux editing was emacs' auto-indent which does (very nearly) exactly what I would have. I don't know which methodology it uses, I don't care; it works well, it's predictable and it's useful. As a programmer, that's really all I want. Arguments about creating emptiness and the representations thereof are best left to the philosophers. Not somone in a stained Amiga t-shirt.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:46:18 -0800

I prefer the new Energy Tabs!

By: ahughey

ahughey — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:50:40 -0800

Damn Tabs!

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:58:06 -0800

It's wonderful how the internet exposes you to other cultures. Like, apparently the worst problems facing England right now are kids climbing on painted surfaces and mailing rodents. I'd had no idea.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:58:22 -0800

Too jargony.

By: jfuller

jfuller — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:02:24 -0800

By: jfuller

jfuller — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:02:46 -0800

> Also, vi (not emacs), Linux (not BSD), stirred (not shaken). Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.

By: Crabby Appleton

Crabby Appleton — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:05:09 -0800

Zawinski has the correct analysis and solution. Nothing more really needs to be said. Anyone who thinks that an ASCII tab character has any business being in a source code file is an idiot.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:06:39 -0800

Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers! People need to relax, this is no jihad. Use the defaults for whatever editor you're using. I use spaces at work, I would prefer tabs, but I don't determine policy. Suck it, haters!

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:14:38 -0800

Definitely Grayswandir. Duh.

By: ny_scotsman

ny_scotsman — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:23:34 -0800

I don't believe it! Tabs?!? Tabs? Spaces! Four spaces per indentation level! Anything else - chaos!

By: sfenders

sfenders — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:25:13 -0800

Also tabs, width:2. Huh? Why would anyone care what you set your tab width to? The whole point of using tabs is so that you can set it to whatever you like, as I'm sure is explained many times over in the links up there. :1,$s/^$[\t]*$ /\1\t/

By: tkolar

tkolar — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:40:11 -0800

I figured this post was in response to this one from earlier today. I didn't bother trying to comment to the poor souls lost in their endless ideologically extreme arguments there. I hope for a time where people treat each other with respect, despite our obvious differences. Until we reach that time, I'm just doing my best to see that everyone who uses emacs has all of their fingers amputated at the knuckle.

By: grouse

grouse — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:49:57 -0800

tkolar: You were the one who cut off my fingers in my sleep! Sick fucking bastard.

By: quin

quin — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:50:35 -0800

You know, it's funny, i was always told that the only people who used VI were inbred pedophiles who suffered from fetal-alcohol syndrome and supported the Nazi party. i'm sure that isn't true, and i'm hoping that some day i'll meet someone who uses VI that isn't a Nazi supporter.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:50:51 -0800

vi or vim, BSD, Grayswandir, stirred, and: Spaces that are interpreted by the editor as tabs.

By: ny_scotsman

ny_scotsman — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:51:57 -0800

sfenders, the problem with tabs is that code that is laid out neatly with tabs set to 4 spaces gets messed up at three or eight spaces. If you use spaces it's always laid out the same way. Spaces, while arguably slightly more work to maintain, are the simple cost that lets people use whatever editor they choose. We are just talking about code, right?

By: tkolar

tkolar — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:58:47 -0800

tkolar: You were the one who cut off my fingers in my sleep! Sick fucking bastard. True, it would reflect much better on my mental health if I only did it to people who were awake.

By: jfuller

jfuller — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 17:02:57 -0800

> You know, it's funny, i was always told that the only people who used VI were > inbred pedophiles who suffered from fetal-alcohol syndrome and supported the Nazi party. Suh! They has been no cousin-marryin' in mah famly fo' et least three gen'rations! esc wq

By: davy

davy — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 17:44:30 -0800

Personally I prefer Pico (on Linux) for most everyday editing tasks, and I've been using a flush-left margin for Usenet and email for a decade now. Since I seldom write anything else it ain't been much of a problem. As for the other stuff: my preferred adult beverage is bourbon neat in a wide glass, I think video games are for teenaged virgins, and my favorite cousin STILL won't have me -- after 35 years I've pretty much given up on her.

By: SirOmega

SirOmega — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:02:17 -0800

Spaces! But my tab key inserts two spaces. I'm more intereste in where you put your brackets... if (foo) { } else { } or if (foo) { } or... if (foo) { } you get the point..

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:02:52 -0800

Spaces. Because, over the last three decades, you tabs people have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that you lack the discipline to use tabs consistently. I don't want to hear any complaining now, you've brought this upon yourselves.

By: SirOmega

SirOmega — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:04:27 -0800

Bah! Multiple spaces dont recognize.. even & nbsp; wont work

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:08:57 -0800

Tabs. Tabs mean freedom of choice. Spaces mean forcing your will upon others. Unless you keep your code to yourself, which means you're a selfish bastard.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:12:02 -0800

And, yes, comment blocks to the right of code and alignment tricks sometimes break when using tabs with a width other than what the coder used, but both are dumb and are done by people who think they are being clever.

By: ddf

ddf — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:16:07 -0800

Clearly I have a long way to go in the geek department because I've not yet started worrying about this particular issue.

By: purephase

purephase — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:22:48 -0800

ny_scotsman writes "Spaces! Four spaces per indentation level! Anything else - chaos!" Nod. This is perfection.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:26:25 -0800

Tabs. :wq

By: Vicarious

Vicarious — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:40:59 -0800

I agree with Sir Omega's comment, I'd rather be more concerned with the bracketing style. Myself, I prefer the open style of:

if (foo)
{
    bar
}

rather then what I think is harder to read:

if (foo) {
    bar
}

and of course, my favorite pet peeve, cram it all in one line:

if (foo) {  bar  }

which is just silly.

By: Mr Stickfigure

Mr Stickfigure — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:42:16 -0800

The chaos that ny_scotsman refers to with tabs is solved by the third camp in this originally linked page. However, I've not yet found an editor with decent support for such a hybrid mode.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 19:07:12 -0800

if( vertical ) { baz( y, x ) ; } else { baz( x, y ) ; } Notice the spaces distinguish the function parameters and the if-expression, not the "if" keyword or the function names. Your eye has seen the keyword thousands of times, and the function name at least dozens of times. what makes this code different from other code is the parameters being passed and the if-expression. Make the differences, not the commonalties, stand out. "baz( x, y )" and "baz( y, x )" are probably doing very different things. That depends on the value of "vertical". Let those things stand out.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 19:53:52 -0800

Indentation is logical, not decorative; use tabs. Use spaces after the tabs if you really just want to line something up with something in the line above. But don't do that; if you've got more parameters than you want to fit on one line, treat the parameter list as a block:

if ( subname(
  first_arg, second_arg, third_arg,
  fourth_arg, fifth_arg, sixth_arg
) ) then {
  do_if_true( x, y );
}

As for punctuation, I prefer:

if ( condition ) {
  do_if_true( x, y );
} else {
  do_if_false( x, y );
}

Because if isn't a subroutine name, it's a flow-of-control operator, and this makes them easy to tell apart.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 19:58:52 -0800

Oh, and my pet peeve is whatever mode of (I assume) emacs it is that indents code with four spaces for one level, one tab for two levels, one tab and four spaces for three levels, two tabs for four levels, &c. Fucking annoying.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 20:08:45 -0800

re: tabs vs. spaces. A simple three-step solution on this. 1: pick a standard for your organization/project. Either one will do. 2: give anyone who voices objections to the standards of your project a dirty-water swirlie. 3: Repeat step 2 as necessary to build consensus. re: vi vs. emacs. I've used both extensively but found that my love for both has declined along with my tolerances for cryptic key sequences that change depending on what type of file you are editing.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 20:11:08 -0800

Oh, and if you set your editor to make tabs into spaces, you will eventually try to edit a Makefile and fuck it right up.

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 20:17:33 -0800

Space Out Tabs

By: Ryvar

Ryvar — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:36:17 -0800

nano, BSD, water. Oh, and Celestial Avenger/Hindo's Doom, duh.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:36:49 -0800

10 If (Nerdfactor >1) Goto 40 20 ThreadRead=0 30 End 40 ThreadRead=1 50 Goto 10

By: formless

formless — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:55:39 -0800

(setq indent-tabs-mode nil) (c-set-style "stroustrup")

By: russm

russm — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:58:22 -0800

nicwolff: that's probably vi's autoindent mode - when you start a new line it will insert a combination of tabs and spaces to line you up with the start of the previous line. :set noai

By: symbioid

symbioid — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 22:23:32 -0800

nicwolff sez: Indentation is logical, not decorative I would have to disagree. In a whitespace neutral language, indention is purely for human benefit, there is no logic inherent in the language that dictates spaces or tabs. If there were, we wouldn't be having this argument. The only logic is that which pleases the human. I see no "logic" in your post that would dictate tabs over spaces. Whitespace is, IMO, in order to make code human-readable, hence it is an aesthetic function. The logic of it is so we can edit code easier, so of course, I guess, there IS a logic, but it's not in the language. if (foo){ statement(); } And for me? two spaces... I think when we learned Pascal in High School, we learned tab with it being 4 spaces. Now, as for the others: emacs (but I prefer nano or joe, so I'm a heretic, I guess), Linux, and if I'm gonna drink, I'm drinking straight Rumpleminze... and Frostbrand!

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 22:38:19 -0800

True, but vi will insert a mix of tabs and spaces only if it finds a mix on the line above, right? Or is there some combination of tabstop and shiftwidth settings that makes vi do this terrible thing? (Wow, I've been using vi for 20 years with ts=2 sw=2 and I have no idea what other settings would do!)

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 22:44:15 -0800

Ah, I get it - tabstop=8 shiftwidth=4 means that if you < or>> lines they'll end up indented with both spaces and tabs. But are there really enough people with that silly vi setup to account for all the code I've seen like that? Hmm...

By: Joeforking

Joeforking — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:17:02 -0800

Embassy Regal!

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:18:17 -0800

Bit 0 belongs in byte 0. Bigendians are the spawn of the devil.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:31:03 -0800

O RLY? Do you write decimal numbers little endian? In that case the Iraq war would only cost $000003 per second!

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:59:30 -0800

No, but the people who invented them do. The general flow of Arabic script is right-to-left; numbers have the big end on the left (i.e. last).

By: tkolar

tkolar — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 00:10:38 -0800

Indentation and Brackets I have before and right now do again nominate Guido van Rossum for Sainthood for Python's handling of code blocks. Not only are bracket wars moot, but at least a modicum of indentation discipline is forced on the programmer. All hail Guido!

By: tkolar

tkolar — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 00:14:50 -0800

flabdablet wrote... No, but the people who invented them do. The general flow of Arabic script is right-to-left; numbers have the big end on the left (i.e. last). That would be a great argument if only the numbering system we used had been invented by the Arabs. It wasn't, it is Indian in origin.

By: grouse

grouse — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 00:57:46 -0800

I have before and right now do again nominate Guido van Rossum for Sainthood for Python's handling of code blocks. Not only are bracket wars moot, but at least a modicum of indentation discipline is forced on the programmer. Yeah, but if you try to use tabs and spaces together it screws everything up. (Most Python programmers use spaces.)

By: hoverboards don't work on water

hoverboards don't work on water — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:00:26 -0800

Oh my! Clearly the triviality of this topic is disputed :) But very seriously for a moment, observe the sheer entrenchment - the sheer absolute certainty that you are right and everyone else is wrong - aroused by this issue and ask yourself if you've never behaved like that in a "real" debate. We are a sorry lot.

By: iso_bars

iso_bars — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:03:34 -0800

Tabs not spaces Vi not emacs if ( foo ) { (no linebreaks!) Gnome not KDE Linux not BSD Debian not Redhat AMD not Intel Playstation not XBox ...I'm running low on religious wars, but i feel i've now successfully pissed everyone off.

By: chrominance

chrominance — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:05:14 -0800

Upon reading the first link, I thought to myself: what, am I the only person who likes THREE spaces per indent? I use tabs myself, because there's a nice delineation between levels of indent—not just visually, but also in the code itself (6 spaces could be three levels, two levels or a typo depensing on context; 2 tabs is 2 levels, no matter how many spaces you or the author uses per indent). However, I use an editor (Notepad2) that will markup tabs to show indent levels, so I may be biased.

By: chrominance

chrominance — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:05:51 -0800

Also, I think we can all agree: 8-spacers should be shot.

By: spazzm

spazzm — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:18:04 -0800

...I'm running low on religious wars, but i feel i've now successfully pissed everyone off. Here, let me help: Java, not .NET. C++, not C. Ruby, not Python. Bash, not Csh.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:19:02 -0800

But using tabs and spaces together is retarded, and the hand-wringing over having to pick which one to use is the reason for this war, and thus this FPP. If you like Python's whitespace fascism, you should check out Haskell, the original whitespace nazi language. In the HUGS Haskell interpreter's default script format, lines not starting with a > are comments! Actual code needs to be "commented" in. With the Tabs v. Spaces war, in Haskell you have to pick one, and stick to it for each function. No mixing tabs and spaces. If you do, your code fails. I tried to put Haskell code samples in this comment for both tabs and spaces, but apparently MeFi can't deal with either at all in <code> tags, and inserts lots of random linebreaks and other wierdness in <pre> tags.

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 06:09:53 -0800

Boys, boys, boys; there's plenty more empty space outside, why don't we all just put down our editors of choice and go experience it?

function (parameters)
{
  functionality;
}

unless in CSS, when it's near pointless to make containment obvious. I'm happy to sacrifice a couple of hundred bytes per file for readability. ...no, I'm going. Look! I'm almost pushing back the chair...

By: Popular Ethics

Popular Ethics — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 08:23:14 -0800

I love this post irrationally. When the end of the universe comes, humans will still be bickering about stupid little things like this. For some reason, that makes me smile. Thanks hoverboards.

By: sotonohito

sotonohito — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:02:10 -0800

iso_bars, you heretic! Tabs not spaces vi not emacs KDE not Gnome Linux not BSD Debian not RedHat AMD not Intel Nintendo not either of the evil duo Since we agree on a lot, but have two areas of disagreement, it follows naturally that I must hate you vastly more than I hate someone who is more obviously wrong. Long live the forces of KDE and Nintendo, death to the heritics of Gnome and Playstation! The difference between programmers and heritics is that programmers support KDE and Nintendo, while the apostate, who are not truly programmers, are doubtless duped by satan himself.

By: iso_bars

iso_bars — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:34:19 -0800

I have found my nemesis. If i'm ever in your neighborhood, satanohito, i'll throw a Playstation through your window, with a death threat (written with gedit) attached. I think you'll find that the brick-like nature of the PS2 is ideally suited to such a task. I'm sure this will make you see the error of your ways. Although with KDE i bet you see errors all the time (ahahaha!) Heretic!

By: grex

grex — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 10:20:38 -0800

You guys just had to drag game consoles into this didn't you. Nintendo FTW!

By: Fezboy!

Fezboy! — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 11:02:04 -0800

Tabs. And, really, I'm not that invested in this argument. I only got pulled in because I worked in a mixed platform team on some Python project and no one was willing to sacrifice their space preferences. The only sensible solution was to abstract the preferred indentation to tabs. Since then the habit has stuck. Since I'm here: nano (emacs if I have to) Linux Gentoo Gnome Java > Python > your crappy alternative but that's only because I've not had the honor of picking up anything in the C family at this time and

if( foo ) {
    ...;
}
else {
    ...;
}

By: Fezboy!

Fezboy! — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 11:04:42 -0800

except for the double spacing in the if/else block. WTF <pre>?

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 11:15:37 -0800

symbioid: Humans are logical too. The purpose of block indentation is to make the logical structure of the program apparent to the reader. It's not aesthetic; it doesn't matter how deep the indents are rendered as long as you can clearly see the nesting; you could translate tab depth into font size or text shading and it might work about as well. Pushing broken parameter lists or comments over to line up with the part on the previous line is aesthetic; it has to be done with just so many spaces, and nothing else, or it breaks. I can easily explain why two tabs means two levels of block nesting in my code. That's what I mean by logical. Can you easily explain why nine spaces means three levels of block nesting in your code?

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 11:19:29 -0800

I'm a programing language slut. I'll use just about anything that strikes my fancy. I'll even use perl when I'm feeling like coming out of the experience dirty and degraded.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 11:37:59 -0800

SPACES~!!!!!!!!!!!11

By: breath

breath — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:02:40 -0800

People! People! Don't you know that whitespace should be part of the language specification?

By: tkolar

tkolar — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:36:26 -0800

Don't you realize that whitespace should be the language specification?

By: tkolar

tkolar — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:40:49 -0800

KirkJobSluder... I'll even use perl... You know these threads are always fun, until someone like you comes along and pushes things way beyond common decency. I'm reporting you to the administrators for obscenity.

By: winjer

winjer — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:44:26 -0800

I used to think tabs, but now think spaces. PEP 8 convinced me.

By: kenko

kenko — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:58:15 -0800

Spaces, emacs, python (faut de mieux, though I do like it a lot), neither Gnome nor KDE (openbox works fine), linux.

if (foo) {
  relatively short suite;
}

if (foo)
{
   comparatively longer suite;
}

Don't ask why, I just observe this behavior. Like Emerson, I write in the modeline of my editor "Whim".

By: nml

nml — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 17:37:25 -0800

bikeshed

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 22:00:19 -0800

Huh. I've always preferred


if (foo)
    {
    ...;
    }

but I guess I'm just weird. I feel like it helps me keep track of what lives at the level of the function, because all the lines included will line up with the open and closing brackets. If my end and start don't line up I know that I forgot to close something properly. And, tabs. Why? Because if I need to un-indent something, I needn't delete 47 goddamn spaces per line to do it. Also, pico > vim > vi (bite me, I was GUI trained - be happy I use command line for anything) slackware > any other distro I've tried coke > pepsi cats > dogs hockey > basketball Han Solo > Captain Kirk Oh I give up. It's all pointless, really.

By: MarkO

MarkO — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:25:38 -0800

nintendo 4 life. kde blowz. i haven't gotten around to learning vi or emacs, where do you people find the time?

By: raedyn

raedyn — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:23:58 -0800

10 If (Nerdfactor >1) Goto 40 20 ThreadRead=0 30 End 40 ThreadRead=1 50 Goto 10 - BitterOldPunk Well I've never done any programming (I get my geek cred other ways) yet even I could understand that, and indeed most of the thread. Cool.

By: sjvilla79

sjvilla79 — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 19:28:08 -0800

function understandFrontPagePost () {
    if (getIt) {
        if ((witty && original) && (likeTabs || likeSpaces)) {
            _root.doApplause();
        } else {
            _root.leaveSnarkyComment();
        };
    } else {
        if (busy) {
            _root.moveOn();
        } else {
            _root.leaveEvenMoreSnarkyComment();
        };
    };
};

What's the big deal though? Most editors will strip whitespace for you after you've finished coding. Or am I missing something?