Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Latest indent request
Message-ID: <2414@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 9 Dec 88 16:52:37 GMT
References: <9125@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> <9149@ihlpb.ATT.COM> <80360@sun.uucp>
Organization: SCADA
Lines: 24

In article <80360@sun.uucp>, lm@snafu.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy) writes:
> In article <9149@ihlpb.ATT.COM> gregg@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Wonderly) writes:
> >One of the most frustrating things for me is that so many people insist
> >on using a mixture of spaces and tabs for indentation.  It seems obvious
> >that editors like vi(1) have commands like ":set tabs=4 sw=4" for some
> >reason!  

> sw=4 is cool.  ts=4 is not.  What happens when I do "lpr $.c" after 
> some boy genius has missused the ts=4 feature?  Yeah, I know about expand,
> but that is a hack and screws up other code.

The idea that I think the original poster is getting at is that if you
set your indent to a single tabstop you can dynamically change the indent
level at your leisure. If I like 4-char indents, I can edit it that way.
If you like 8 char indents, you can edit it that way. If the code is nested
too deeply, it can be much more pleasant to work with after setting "ts"
and "sw" to 1 or 2... but it will still print pretty.

If I find a program that's got indentations less than a tabstop, it goes
through 'cb' first thing... and to hell with the pretty comments.
-- 
Peter da Silva     `-_-'     Ferranti International Controls Corporation
   "Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?"        uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter
Disclaimer: I accept full responsibility for my typos. peter@ficc.uu.net