🚀 go-pugleaf

"Hauke Ingmar Schmidt" <usenet@haukeingmar.de> wrote in message
news:ahneaj$ulpsj$1@ID-76405.news.dfncis.de...
> Moin!
>
> Dale King <KingD@TCE.com> schrieb:
>
> >     int   i;
> >     float f;
> >
> > Neither spaces or tabs will work consistently for that type of
> > alignment.
>
> Tabs do. A tab sets the cursor to the next tab stop; it is not moving
> the cursor for a special number of spaces (only at very simple editors).
> So if the next tab stop is at e.g. column 16 (which normally is not "16
> characters from the left margin" but units of your choice, centimeter,
> millimeter, miles...) and both of the types above end before column 16
> it aligns perfectly. Only if one of the texts goes beyond the tab stop
> the alignment will be disturbed.

And the meaning of next tab stop differs based on the width of the text
before it. You are the one suggesting different fonts and proportional
fonts. Depending on the size of your proportional font next tab stop will
differ.

> > Tabs will line it up for a particular font, but
> > is not portable to a different font.
>
> Tabs don't care for fonts.

Well, you were the one bringing proportional fonts into this. If I take code
with tabs to line that up with one font at a particular size it will become
unaligned as I change fonts or font sizes. Once again tabs are not portable.

> > It is best to avoid doing these
> > kinds on inter-line alignments.
>
> Use a formatter set up for your requirements and use it once before
> reading external code.

Which solves indentation problems but not inter-line alignment. I have yet
to find any formatter that will let me set it up to meet MY requirements.

Another problem is when you have a series of lines with inter-line
alignments like that and you need to change all of them (done with a search
and replace likely). After the change they no longer line up. This can
affect spaces or tabs, so my point is not that one is better or worse for
inter-line alignment, but that nothing works for inter-line alignment.

> > For indentation tabs only or spaces only will both work if your tool
> > supports tabs (which once again not all tools do).
>
> For example?

I've already said that I have seen compiler error outputs not work well with
tabs and difference tools. Do I have the names of specific products? No. It
has been a while since I looked at difference tools and believe me I looked
at a lot of them.

I ran into a tabs vs. spaces thing myself just this past week. I have a Java
program that reads a file with commands where each command is a single line
of text or a comment. This file is read and each line becomes an item in a
JList. The person that created the file in his text editor had tabs in the
comments. In the JList they showed up as boxes. There was no way to handle
this elegantly, so I just replaces the tabs with a space. Now they don't
line up.

--
  Dale King