[Gllug] SIGSEGV error

Nix nix at esperi.org.uk
Sun Sep 2 00:30:07 UTC 2007


On 1 Sep 2007, Tethys stated:
> Nix writes:
>
>>I'd prefer C to move to requiring decent indentation so that I could
>>really whale on those idiots among my coworkers who believe that it's
>>up to *other* people to indent properly; they can just slam their code
>>straight down the left-hand margin for `speed'.
>
> The current target for my loathing when it comes to indentation
> is emacs. Most of us in the office use vi. But my boss uses emacs,
> which has an incredibly unpleasant habit of mixing tabs and spaces
> when indenting[1].

The GNU coding standards mandate this behaviour, and as Emacs is the
preferred editor of many GNU hackers, and maintained by GNU, that's the
default :)

(setq indent-tabs-mode nil) if you dislike it.

>                    Everyone knows that tabs are the one true indentation
> method[2]. Spaces are OK if you absolutely have to.

Actually, JWZ and numerous others (including me) hold precisely the
opposite view.

>                                                      But mixing both?
> That's a cardinal sin, and can never be forgiven.

Nah, it's fine, *as long as* you only ever insert tabs at the start of
the line, not preceded by any spaces or by anything else. This has the
advantage that you can `high-speed reindent' your code by changing the
tab width, and it doesn't muck up the look (much).

(Personally I dislike it and set indent-tabs-mode to nil except when
editing GNU code.)

> [1] This may just be a feature of the erlang and python modes he uses.

It's an Emacs feature, and can be turned off easily.

>     I try and avoid emacs where possible, so I don't know if it does
>     it out of the box.

It does.

> [2] Yes, JWZ is wrong about that.

I think this is a religious issue. :)

-- 
`Some people don't think performance issues are "real bugs", and I think 
such people shouldn't be allowed to program.' --- Linus Torvalds
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