Re: Whitespace cleanup

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 23 August 2012 10:50, Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Why do this at all? Why use tabs like this? The only purpose this
>> seems to serve in my eyes is to mess up the alignment if someone for
>> whatever reason decides to change tab-width.
>
> I strongly discourage changing tab-width with very few exceptions.

There is a lot of code out there besides' Emacs own. I have to keep
changing my tab width to be able to read it all. Sometimes it's 8,
usually it's 4, rarely it's 2 or 3, and if people are mixing tabs and
spaces, I have to figure out what tab width they intended to use if
they don't explicitly state it somehow. It's a minor annoyance I'd
like to at least fix in Emacs's own source code.

> If someone does change it either globally and or elisp-mode buffers,
> he's on his own and we'll complain about the patches he may submit
> for inclusion.

But again, what is the point of having tabs at all other than promote
breakage if tab-width for whatever reason changes?

On 23 August 2012 10:52, Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Hm, hg's annotate and diff can be told to ignore whitespace changes.
>> I understand bzr's diff also can. So it's just a matter of making bzr
>> grow another feature?
>
> The TAB-vs-SPC is a non-problem, really.  Whereas the problems with
> annotate, diff, and merge are real.  Maybe they can solved, but
> why bother?

Tabs apparently are not a problem for you, but they are for me. If you
don't care either way about tabs, you won't care if we get rid of tabs
in the Emacs tree either assuming I can get bzr to grow the option to
ignore whitespace in diffs and annotate, correct?

On 23 August 2012 10:44, Juanma Barranquero <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> The Emacs
>> source isn't always in its original tree.
>
> If you're editing Emacs sources outside the Emacs tree, you can add a
> .dir-locals.el file.

Assuming I have write permissions to that directory. Sometimes I am
reading the source files from a location my sysadmin installed them
in.

Yes, there are more workarounds, but why create a situation in which
workarounds need to exist in the first place?

Look, obviously you guys think that nothing needs to be done. I do.
I'm not asking anyone to do the work, but if I do that work, I just
ask that you accept my work if you don't care either way. I care.

- Jordi G. H.