Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

My main objection to using tabs has always been that the Tab key is heavily overloaded: it navigates (one Tab press to move the cursor to the correct indentation point), selects (tab completion), and it puts a variable-width character into my monospace-defined text file.

I'd rather drop the insertion part and have my editor handle adding an appropriate number of spaces.

Let me add this: there's actually nothing stopping you from displaying a four-space indented file as a two-space indented file. Just parse, replace indentation-dictated groups of four spaces with two spaces, you're done.

I don't know of a plugin that does this for $your-favorite-editor but it's, y'know, software. There's nothing which prevents it.



yeah, but then your Version Control system thinks that you changed the file and it needs to commit that change.

Which is a ton more hassle than inserting tabs.

You could always make CapsLock insert a tab character so you keep the functions of the tab key separate from inserting a tab.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: