Comment on Tabs are objectively better than spaces - gomakethings.com

• wgs@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You might not understand how to do it properly so here’s the idea:

  Tabs will let you reach the indentation level of the current block, then from here, you’ll use spaces to align stuff property. Here’s an example, where >••• are tabs (I’m exaggerating alignment for the sake of the example) :

  >•••if (condition1 == true
  >••• || condition2 != false)
  >•••{
  >•••>•••struct ident people[] = [
  >•••>•••>•••{
  >•••>•••>•••>•••.name   = "bob",
  >•••>•••>•••>•••.pubkey = "value1",
  >•••>•••>•••},
  >•••>•••>•••{
  >•••>•••>•••>•••.name   = "alice",
  >•••>•••>•••>•••.pubkey = "value2",
  >•••>•••>•••}
  >•••>•••];
  >•••>•••secureConnection(people[0].name, people[0].pubkey,
  >•••>•••                 people[1].name, people[1].pubkey,
  >•••>•••                 CRYPTO_ALGO_DEFAULT);
  >•••}
  

  As you can see, everything will stay correctly aligned as long as it’s within the same block.

  source
• JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You’re confusing using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment with using tabs and spaces for indentation. This means each line starts with tabs. Next you optionally have spaces for alignment with previous lines. Then you have content (like code or comments). Because you never have a tab following a space the alignment is never destroyed by adjusting how wide a tabstop is.

  source

  • zagaberoo@beehaw.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I am not, it’s easy to find examples where tabs first then spaces breaks down.

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    • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That example is using tabs for both indentation and alignment. The article you linked even says not using tabs for alignment is a solution.

      • Do not use tabs for alignment. In such case given example should look like:

      fun foo x =
      --->let val abs = if x > 0
      --->              then x
      --->              else -x
      --->in
      --->--->(* ... *)
      --->end
      

      source

      • zagaberoo@beehaw.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yes, but keep reading. That strategy is a pain to maintain especially across editors.

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