Tabs are designed for tabulation (hence the name), not indentation. The side effect is that a tab’s length changes based on its position in a line, which is terrible for programming. If you use tabs in the Python REPL, it looks like this:
>>>deffrobnicate_all(arr):>>>for item in arr:>>> frobnicate(item)
The horizontal tabulation character moves the cursor to the next column which is a multiple of the tabulation length. See the examples here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_key
At least for me, it renders like this:
Clearly the whitespace produced by each tab character has a different length.
The horizontal tabulation character moves the cursor to the next column which is a multiple of the tabulation length. See the examples here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_key
Yes
Clearly the whitespace produced by each tab character has a different length.
No, each tab has the same size, the text rendered over the top of the tabs are not the same size.
Always remember the golden rule: Tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment.
Tabs are designed for tabulation (hence the name), not indentation. The side effect is that a tab’s length changes based on its position in a line, which is terrible for programming. If you use tabs in the Python REPL, it looks like this:
>>> def frobnicate_all(arr): >>> for item in arr: >>> frobnicate(item)How long is a newline?
A newline is the separator between lines, so the concept of length doesn’t make sense for it.
Correct.
And a tab is the separator between stops.
What does this even mean? A tab is a tab.
Tab’s don’t have multiple lengths inside a file, they all have the same length.
That’s the point of tabs.
The horizontal tabulation character moves the cursor to the next column which is a multiple of the tabulation length. See the examples here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_key
At least for me, it renders like this:
Clearly the whitespace produced by each tab character has a different length.
Yes
No, each tab has the same size, the text rendered over the top of the tabs are not the same size.
Always remember the golden rule: Tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment.