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From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>
To: Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com>
Cc: TUHS main list <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] tabs vs spaces - entab, detab
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2021 01:58:14 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <25705.1614938294@hop.toad.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <e1de2d11-2975-f900-95ee-24a7e0ecafa8@gmail.com>

Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com> wrote:
>                         the notorious "inconsistent use of tabs and 
> spaces in indentation" error. Python drives me nuts with it's 
> finickiness on this...

The one that got me was make(1).  Being used to text editors that used
"tab" as a command rather than a literal character, I proposed a fix
early on at Sun that would allow leading spaces as well as tabs in
Makefiles.  (I think this was in the Unisoft Unix days, pre-BSD.)  Bill
Shannon actually put it into their source tree.  But in a few days or
weeks, he took it back out, because he realized that Makefiles built on
Suns using leading spaces wouldn't work anywhere else.

Compatibility with the rest of the UNIX(tm) world was more important
than eliminating the software's foolish distinction between two
characters you can't see.

	John
	

  reply	other threads:[~2021-03-05  9:58 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 78+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-03-04 16:52 Will Senn
2021-03-04 16:59 ` Clem Cole
2021-03-04 18:31   ` arnold
2021-03-04 19:23     ` Nemo Nusquam
2021-03-04 19:37       ` Steve Nickolas
2021-03-04 19:50         ` Rob Pike
2021-03-04 21:20           ` Robert Clausecker
2021-03-04 21:25           ` Will Senn
2021-03-05  9:58             ` John Gilmore [this message]
2021-03-06 21:31               ` Dave Horsfall
2021-03-06 21:38                 ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-06 22:05                   ` Clem Cole
2021-03-15  3:02                     ` John Cowan
2021-03-15 18:15                       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-03-15 21:19                         ` Bakul Shah
2021-03-15 23:47                           ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-03-16  3:10                             ` Earl Baugh
2021-03-15 21:08                       ` Dave Horsfall
2021-03-15 21:12                         ` Steve Nickolas
2021-03-15 21:24                           ` Dave Horsfall
2021-03-15 22:06                             ` Adam Thornton
2021-03-16 13:25                             ` arnold
2021-03-17  5:10                       ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-06 21:40                 ` Steve Nickolas
2021-03-04 18:48   ` emanuel stiebler
2021-03-05  0:44     ` John Cowan
2021-03-05  0:55       ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-05  1:09         ` George Michaelson
2021-03-05  1:21           ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-05  1:29             ` Richard Salz
2021-03-04 18:33 ` John P. Linderman
2021-03-04 21:24 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-04 21:27   ` Will Senn
2021-03-04 21:29     ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-04 21:42       ` Will Senn
2021-03-04 21:48       ` John P. Linderman
2021-03-04 22:08         ` Andy Kosela
2021-03-04 22:12           ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-05 14:13             ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-03-05 20:24               ` John Cowan
2021-03-05 21:51                 ` Bakul Shah
2021-03-06 23:43                 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-03-05  0:15           ` Jon Steinhart
2021-03-06 21:22           ` Dave Horsfall
2021-03-06 23:58             ` Bakul Shah
2021-03-07  0:03               ` Jon Steinhart
2021-03-07  0:25               ` Steve Nickolas
2021-03-07  9:16               ` Brantley Coile
2021-03-05  9:50         ` [TUHS] tunefs -m 5% John Gilmore
2021-03-05 15:01           ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2021-03-05 15:32           ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-03-06  1:18             ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-06  1:52               ` Warner Losh
2021-03-06 21:45                 ` Dave Horsfall
2021-03-06 22:03                   ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-09  4:59                     ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-06 23:52                   ` David Barto
2021-03-06  1:16           ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-04 22:10     ` [TUHS] tabs vs spaces - entab, detab Greg A. Woods
2021-03-05  1:41 ` alan
2021-03-05  1:55 ` alan
2021-03-05  2:06   ` Will Senn
2021-03-05 17:08     ` Clem Cole
2021-03-05 17:19       ` Richard Salz
2021-03-05 19:39         ` Lawrence Stewart
2021-03-05 19:51           ` Dan Halbert
2021-03-08  1:52       ` Will Senn
2021-03-05 16:43 ` Scot Jenkins via TUHS
2021-03-05 22:23   ` Bakul Shah
2021-03-06 20:51 ` Dave Horsfall
2021-03-06 21:01   ` Jon Steinhart
2021-03-06 21:19     ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-06 22:01       ` Clem Cole
2021-03-05 16:44 M Douglas McIlroy
2021-03-05 19:29 ` Greg A. Woods
2021-03-06 23:21   ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-03-05 22:50 Norman Wilson
2021-03-07  2:53 Nelson H. F. Beebe

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