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Subject: Re: Tabs As Syntax
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2024 10:25:39 -0400
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On 3/20/2024 8:13 AM, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> Nuxxie wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
> 
>> I took at the look at the Wikipedia page for GNU Make, the wonderful build
>> automation tool, and I found an interesting comment.
>>
>> Make uses a tab character as part of its syntax.  Any competent text editor
>> (except on Microslop) will clearly distinguish between tabs and spaces, but
>> some still find the practice abhorrent:
>>
>> 'This aspect of the syntax of makefiles is often subject to criticism; it
>> has been described by Eric S. Raymond as "one of the worst design botches
>> in the history of Unix" and The Unix-Haters Handbook said "using tabs as
>> part of the syntax is like one of those pungee stick traps in The Green
>> Berets".'
>>
>> Gee.  I wonder what these dudes would think of Python?
> 
> The usage of spaces or tabs to determine statement scope is a great big
> turnoff for me.

Terminating lines with an arbitrary character, such as a semicolon, is 
bogus to me.


> I don't subscribe to Guido's opinion on the visual ease of indentation.
> It's easier to search for braces and use whatever indentation makes it
> easy to read in context.

Contradicted yourself from one sentence to the next... shades of Feeb.

Python style (forced indents, no forced brackets) is shorter and more 
readable than C style (no forced indents, forced brackets).



> The beauty of C is that white space is not significant except in quotes.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Code without indentation and white space is unreadable and virtually 
impossible to follow.

No professional programmer would EVER submit it as work product.  No 
programming book would EVER use it as an example of programming style.