Re: [Iverilog-devel] On Spaces and Tabs

[Larry D. <ldo...@re...>]

Guys -

On Sun, Feb 17, 2008 at 12:19:12PM -0800, Cary R. wrote:
> --- Michael Witten <mfwitten@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> > However, that was an uncharacteristic outburst of enthusiasm
> > for tabs, which I've tried to use of recent.
> 
> Tabs save space and depending on your setup key strokes as well, but in
> todays world I'm not so certain that the space savings is an issue and
> many editors can be configured to automatically convert tabs and spaces
> depending on preference.

I'm almost embarrassed to have brought up the subject in the first
place.  If the choice is between reliable, inconsistently spaced code,
and buggy beautiful code, I'll take the former every time.

Let me try to add a few constructive comments, without getting bogged
down in details:

1. This is primarily Steve's code base.  The rest of us should adapt
our submissions to his style.

2. The busybox project is an example of a large multi-contributor
project that has a published, negotiated, and IMHO well-thought-out
policy on whitespace.  If Steve ever decides to change the whitespace
style, I highly recommend he start from there.

3. The patch in question doesn't diverge from Steve's whitespace style(s)
at all.  It merely fixes some typos in implementing that style.

4. Mixing whitespace changes with actual code changes in one patch is
bad version control practice.  Of course, if code is completely
rewritten, it doesn't matter how it is spaced, it's still picked up as
new code.

> > It is my belief that formatting plays an integral role in the
> > readability, maintainability, and understanding of code,

Agree.

> > so absolute control is therefore essential.

Disagree.  See busybox.

> > I would like to add that I don't believe code should be written as
> > though it's meant to be printed; that is, code should not be hard
> > wrapped unless absolutely necessary.

Meh.  Take this on a case by case basis.

> The question is at what width is this considered mandatory? I could use
> window widths much larger than 80, but when you get much larger than this
> it becomes harder to read and limits the number of windows you can have
> visible.

The question gets fuzzier if you use tabs for indentation.  What fits
on an 80 character screen with tabstop=4 may not fit for people like me
who set tabstop=8.  I occasionally (but rarely) write code that is best
expressed with very long lines.  I have been known to switch to tiny
font and stretch my window out to the max my screen can hold in order
to properly work on a file.  That's about 268 columns wide.

   - Larry