[wp-hackers] Coding style

Elliotte Harold elharo at metalab.unc.edu
Tue Jul 4 12:20:33 GMT 2006


Brian Layman wrote:
>> http://wordpress.org/docs/developer/coding-style/
>> "Use real tabs and not spaces, as this allows the most flexibility across
> clients."

This rule is flat-out wrong. It is 180 degrees backwards. Tabs are 
unreliable across editors, change from one system to the next, do not 
reproduce well when printed, and generally make a mess of code. With 
tabs, code that looks just great in one editor looks hideous as soon as 
the next programmer looks at it, or even the same programmer looks at it 
in a different editor.

In some languages, for instance Java and C, half-indents for line 
continuations are also a problem if you use tabs, though I don't happen 
to know whether or not this applies to PHP.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo at metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/


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