Re: [Springframework-developer] Any sort of defined policy w/rega rds to tab/space usage and indentation?

[Colin S. <col...@ex...>]

Well, it does and it doesn't. That is, there is no way on a project by 
project basis to set the tab key to spit out tabs or spaces when you press
Tab to indent. And there is no easy way to switch back and forth; you 
actually have to go to two separate places in the preferences. There is 
also no easy way to switch the defined tab/indent size, only via the 
preferences. Actually, if Eclipse is set for spaces, there is no way to 
even spit out a hard tab.   This all basically means you have to use one 
worksapce for your projects that use spaces for indents, and one for 
your projects that use tabs.

Anyways, while I personally don't like them, I respect everyone's right 
to like them, and I understand the history here :-). I just wanted to 
know what the policy was...


Kopylenko, Dmitry wrote:

>I also use tabs and Eclipse supports them very well ;-)
>
>Dmitriy.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Rod Johnson [mailto:rod...@in...] 
>Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 3:37 AM
>To: Colin Sampaleanu; jue...@we...
>Cc: Spring Developers
>Subject: Re: [Springframework-developer] Any sort of defined policy
>w/regards to tab/space usage and indentation?
>
>
>The use of tabs is historical. I'm in the minority of people who use tabs,
>so the original code base had tabs and I still use them. I know most people
>in open source projects hate tabs, so we might eventually need to change
>this.
>
>We did consider the use of Jalopy before check in at one point.
>
>I'd prefer not to mess with the formatting process before 1.0 unless we
>really need to.
>
>Regards,
>Rod
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Colin Sampaleanu" <col...@ex...>
>To: <rod...@in...>; <jue...@we...>
>Cc: "Spring Developers" <spr...@li...>
>Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 10:14 PM
>Subject: [Springframework-developer] Any sort of defined policy w/regards to
>tab/space usage and indentation?
>
>
>  
>
>>I notice that most of the codebase in Spring uses hard tabs as opposed 
>>to spaces for indentation. From looking at some comment text which 
>>does have some embedded spaces, as far as I can tell the assumption is 
>>that tabs equate to 4 chars, although most of the code itself does not 
>>seem to make this assumption?
>>
>>Is there any sort of project policy or guideline on this? i.e. 
>>something like 'all code must use hard tabs, and align elements only 
>>with tabs', etc.? I can hopefully work with any policy, but I'd just 
>>like to know if one exists... (although if I am forced to use hard 
>>tabs I would actually have to set up another Eclipse workspace, right 
>>now my tab key puts out spaces).
>>
>>fwiw, I have personally found that hard tabs are somewhat of a 
>>disaster (or at least a problem) in many team environents. In my 
>>teams, it's generally the one rule we apply with no exceptions, "no 
>>hard tabs". The problem is that while hard tabs have the ideal benefit 
>>of allowing users to indent to whatever size they like, in practice 
>>people seem to not have the discipline to stick to using tabs only, or 
>>their editor of the moment doesn't allow them to set the tab size to 
>>something else easilly, so spaces creep in. Once that happens to any 
>>extent, the code looks broken to anybody else using another tab size.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Colin
>>    
>>