Tabs, spaces, and indentation
John Nagle (nagle@netcom.com)
Wed, 13 Apr 1994 00:23:37 GMT
As an indentation-based language, Python has problems with the
relationship between tabs and spaces. Reading UNIX files on the Mac,
or vice versa, tends to result in files that either look wrong,
parse wrong, or both. The UNIX world tends to use 1 tab = 8 spaces,
while the Mac world tends to use 1 tab = 4 spaces. Yes, you can give
a command to the Python parser to change its tab/space relationship,
but that's messy when you have multiple included files.
I suggest that Python allow indentation with either.
tabs or spaces, but complain if it sees both used for indentation
in the same file. Comments?
John Nagle