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  3. Indenting: spaces or tabs?

Indenting: spaces or tabs?

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  • V Vuemme

    Tabs set to 4 spaces. And I usually ident code with open and close braces on a separate row: ex: if () { } else { } Here you'll find some code idented in a funny way :) P.S. In some languages (python, for example) identing is mandatory. -- Looking for a new screen-saver? Try FOYD: http://digilander.iol.it/FOYD

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    Simon Walton
    wrote on last edited by
    #24

    Welcome to your new job, Mr Walton. There's a serious stack overflow bug in this code, we'll need you to solve it by, oh, noon. Or you're fired.

    8

    SIMON WALTON
    SONORK ID 100.10024

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    • G Gary Wheeler

      Real programmers use EDLIN. (although the best programmer's editor was TECO on the DEC PDP-11 under RT-11)


      "Think of it as evolution in action." - 'Oath of Fealty' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

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      Paul Riley
      wrote on last edited by
      #25

      I quite liked "vi". I know I tend towards the "why do things the hard way when there's lovely tool to do it for you?" school of thought but vi was incredibly easy once you'd been using it for a while. Most of the commands were instinctive (but it was always helpful to have a quick reference guide around, just in case) just like anything else after using it constantly for a few weeks. Paul

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      • L Luca Leonardo Scorcia

        A little survey about your code-indent style... what do you use? Spaces or tabs? I used to do a mix of tabs and spaces, but the code looked awful when edited with VS and then opened with notepad for a quick look. So I started using only spaces, but I noticed that for some files indentation made the file size grow a lot... now I'm using only tabs. I think that's the best way: any serious code editor can set the tab size to any number of space you want, code in notepad looks fine, and it's faster to type and files don't get too large. These are my 2 cents. And yours? Luca Leonardo Scorcia http://zip.to/kojak (only in Italian)

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        Paul Watson
        wrote on last edited by
        #26

        Luca Leonardo Scorcia wrote: And yours? Tabs set to 1 (in HTML you can get very deeply nested, having Tab set to 4 or 8 means the first letter of a line can start off the page, so 1 is the only option.) No idea why people use spaces. Someone once mentioned it is better for printing, but I never saw any proof.

        Paul Watson
        Bluegrass
        Cape Town, South Africa

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        • D Daniel Turini

          If you are worried about tabs and spaces you're using the wrong set of programming tools... :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: Concussus surgo. When struck I rise.

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          Paul Watson
          wrote on last edited by
          #27

          Daniel Turini wrote: you're using the wrong set of programming tools... So what tools should we be using? Just curious :)

          Paul Watson
          Bluegrass
          Cape Town, South Africa

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          • G Gary Wheeler

            Real programmers use EDLIN. (although the best programmer's editor was TECO on the DEC PDP-11 under RT-11)


            "Think of it as evolution in action." - 'Oath of Fealty' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

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            brianwelsch
            wrote on last edited by
            #28

            Gary Wheeler wrote: Real programmers use EDLIN. no,nononono. REAL coders use punch cards. :rolleyes: BW {insert witty/thought-provoking saying here}

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            • B brianwelsch

              Gary Wheeler wrote: Real programmers use EDLIN. no,nononono. REAL coders use punch cards. :rolleyes: BW {insert witty/thought-provoking saying here}

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              Gary Wheeler
              wrote on last edited by
              #29

              Been there, done that. When I took Data Structures in college, programming was on the IBM 370 mainframe, using punch cards. We had a guy in our class who was blind. This guy read the holes in the cards with his fingers. I helped him do a 'floor sort' one time; it was a good thing he liked sequence numbers in columns 73-80.


              "Think of it as evolution in action." - 'Oath of Fealty' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

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              • L Luca Leonardo Scorcia

                A little survey about your code-indent style... what do you use? Spaces or tabs? I used to do a mix of tabs and spaces, but the code looked awful when edited with VS and then opened with notepad for a quick look. So I started using only spaces, but I noticed that for some files indentation made the file size grow a lot... now I'm using only tabs. I think that's the best way: any serious code editor can set the tab size to any number of space you want, code in notepad looks fine, and it's faster to type and files don't get too large. These are my 2 cents. And yours? Luca Leonardo Scorcia http://zip.to/kojak (only in Italian)

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                Michael Mac
                wrote on last edited by
                #30

                I use tabs. :)


                43 68 65 65 72 73 2c 4d 69 63 68 61 65 6c

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                • G Gary Wheeler

                  Been there, done that. When I took Data Structures in college, programming was on the IBM 370 mainframe, using punch cards. We had a guy in our class who was blind. This guy read the holes in the cards with his fingers. I helped him do a 'floor sort' one time; it was a good thing he liked sequence numbers in columns 73-80.


                  "Think of it as evolution in action." - 'Oath of Fealty' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

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                  brianwelsch
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #31

                  Gary Wheeler wrote: We had a guy in our class who was blind. This guy read the holes in the cards with his fingers. :cool: Very impressive! I guess having used cards helps to appreciate the speed and convenience we have today. And to think I used to gripe about waiting for the cassette drive to finish loading. BW {insert witty/thought-provoking saying here}

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                  • L Luca Leonardo Scorcia

                    A little survey about your code-indent style... what do you use? Spaces or tabs? I used to do a mix of tabs and spaces, but the code looked awful when edited with VS and then opened with notepad for a quick look. So I started using only spaces, but I noticed that for some files indentation made the file size grow a lot... now I'm using only tabs. I think that's the best way: any serious code editor can set the tab size to any number of space you want, code in notepad looks fine, and it's faster to type and files don't get too large. These are my 2 cents. And yours? Luca Leonardo Scorcia http://zip.to/kojak (only in Italian)

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                    Jason Gerard
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #32

                    Tabs set to 4 spaces. Jason Gerard

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                    • _ _Magnus_

                      I want to use tabs but have to use spaces, and it sucks.. X| With tabs everybody can have the tabwidth they want. If you want to delete the tab you just type you only have to press backspace once. Easier to reformat the code. I cant see a single advantage with using spaces. /Magnus


                      - I don't necessarily agree with everything I say

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                      Tim Lesher
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #33

                      I cant see a single advantage with using spaces. Because if you have your tabs set differently from me, any indentation other than the beginning-of-line, one-tab indentation gets screwed up. It's mostly a problem when you use end-of-line comments, aligned variable initializations, or indentation for the definition of long functions, all shown below:

                      sometype_t CSomeClass::SomeRandomFunction(footype_t arg1,
                      footype_t arg2)
                      {
                      somestruct_t thing;
                      thing.a = -1;
                      thing.longerName = 10;
                      thing.evenLongerName = 5;

                      doSomething();              // And explain why
                      doSomethingElse();          // And explain that, too
                      doSomethingWithALongName(); // And this one, too
                      

                      }

                      The arguments won't line up if you use tabs at a different width than me, but they will line up if you use spaces. And the argument that spaces take up more disk space than tabs? Geez, what a non-starter! With 80GB hard drives costing less than US$79, what's the point? Do you also use i, j, k, and l for variable names to save space?! ;-) Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

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                      • B brianwelsch

                        Gary Wheeler wrote: Real programmers use EDLIN. no,nononono. REAL coders use punch cards. :rolleyes: BW {insert witty/thought-provoking saying here}

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                        T Offline
                        Tim Lesher
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #34

                        REAL coders use punch cards. And REAL coders who won't/can't adapt are on the dole. ;-) Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

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                        • T Tim Lesher

                          I cant see a single advantage with using spaces. Because if you have your tabs set differently from me, any indentation other than the beginning-of-line, one-tab indentation gets screwed up. It's mostly a problem when you use end-of-line comments, aligned variable initializations, or indentation for the definition of long functions, all shown below:

                          sometype_t CSomeClass::SomeRandomFunction(footype_t arg1,
                          footype_t arg2)
                          {
                          somestruct_t thing;
                          thing.a = -1;
                          thing.longerName = 10;
                          thing.evenLongerName = 5;

                          doSomething();              // And explain why
                          doSomethingElse();          // And explain that, too
                          doSomethingWithALongName(); // And this one, too
                          

                          }

                          The arguments won't line up if you use tabs at a different width than me, but they will line up if you use spaces. And the argument that spaces take up more disk space than tabs? Geez, what a non-starter! With 80GB hard drives costing less than US$79, what's the point? Do you also use i, j, k, and l for variable names to save space?! ;-) Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

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                          _Magnus_
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #35

                          Tim Lesher wrote: The arguments won't line up if you use tabs at a different width than me, but they will line up if you use spaces But there is no problem pressing the space key even if the tabkey produces *drumroll* tabs. :) So this arugment does not hold. Tim Lesher wrote: And the argument that spaces take up more disk space than tabs? Geez, what a non-starter! With 80GB hard drives costing less than US$79, what's the point? Do you also use i, j, k, and l for variable names to save space?! Where did you get that from? I never said that, and i never would say so..... /Magnus


                          - I don't necessarily agree with everything I say

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                          • T Tim Lesher

                            Spaces at four; whitesmith (Microsoft)-style indenting

                            int func()
                            {
                            for (int i=0; i< 4; ++i)
                            {
                            // Like This
                            ;
                            }
                            return 0; // With no parens around the zero, dammit!
                            }

                            Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

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                            Tim Lesher
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #36

                            Bah... article thread view appears to get rid of initial spacing. Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

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                            • L Luca Leonardo Scorcia

                              A little survey about your code-indent style... what do you use? Spaces or tabs? I used to do a mix of tabs and spaces, but the code looked awful when edited with VS and then opened with notepad for a quick look. So I started using only spaces, but I noticed that for some files indentation made the file size grow a lot... now I'm using only tabs. I think that's the best way: any serious code editor can set the tab size to any number of space you want, code in notepad looks fine, and it's faster to type and files don't get too large. These are my 2 cents. And yours? Luca Leonardo Scorcia http://zip.to/kojak (only in Italian)

                              T Offline
                              T Offline
                              Tim Lesher
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #37

                              Spaces at four; whitesmith (Microsoft)-style indenting

                              int func()
                              {
                              for (int i=0; i< 4; ++i)
                              {
                              // Like This
                              ;
                              }
                              return 0; // With no parens around the zero, dammit!
                              }

                              Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

                              T M 2 Replies Last reply
                              0
                              • _ _Magnus_

                                Tim Lesher wrote: The arguments won't line up if you use tabs at a different width than me, but they will line up if you use spaces But there is no problem pressing the space key even if the tabkey produces *drumroll* tabs. :) So this arugment does not hold. Tim Lesher wrote: And the argument that spaces take up more disk space than tabs? Geez, what a non-starter! With 80GB hard drives costing less than US$79, what's the point? Do you also use i, j, k, and l for variable names to save space?! Where did you get that from? I never said that, and i never would say so..... /Magnus


                                - I don't necessarily agree with everything I say

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                                T Offline
                                Tim Lesher
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #38

                                But there is no problem pressing the space key even if the tabkey produces *drumroll* tabs. Correct, but Dev Studio auto-indents the arguments for you, and if you have tabs as your default, it uses a mixture of spaces and tabs. Of course, the error may be relying on Dev Studio's auto indent. It also butchers long for statements if you break after each semicolon. And the argument that spaces take up more disk space than tabs? Geez, what a non-starter! Where did you get that from? I never said that, and i never would say so..... You didn't, but it was mentioned in the thread, and I couldn't be bothered to go back and put it after the right response... :-) Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • T Tim Lesher

                                  Spaces at four; whitesmith (Microsoft)-style indenting

                                  int func()
                                  {
                                  for (int i=0; i< 4; ++i)
                                  {
                                  // Like This
                                  ;
                                  }
                                  return 0; // With no parens around the zero, dammit!
                                  }

                                  Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws

                                  M Offline
                                  M Offline
                                  Mike Nordell
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #39

                                  Tim Lesher wrote: return 0; // With no parens around the zero, dammit! Obviously not, "return" isn't a function call, is it?! :-)

                                  1 Reply Last reply
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