[rules-dev] indentation spaces VS tabs (\t)

Diego López León dieguitoll at gmail.com
Mon Sep 6 19:48:55 EDT 2010


What do you think about using 2 spaces for XMLs?

I think maven guys use this convention and it looks nice

On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Michael Neale <michael.neale at gmail.com> wrote:
> 4 spaces makes sense. Tabs would be a mistake and misconfigured IDE.
> I have heard that for "dense" languages - people like 2 space indents (its
> recommended in scala - which I spend most of my time).
> But I think DRL would look a bit funny with 2 spaces - 4 does make sense, as
> DRL lines aren't very long - they don't need to be !
> Nice work picking this up geoffrey - and yes, in the past I was bitten by
> merge hassles.
>
> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 2:36 AM, Mark Proctor <mproctor at codehaus.org> wrote:
>>
>>  yes it should be 4 spaces.
>>
>> Mark
>> On 06/09/2010 14:20, Geoffrey De Smet wrote:
>> > Hi guys,
>> >
>> > Looks like we have different ways of indent our files.
>> > I 've seen these occurrences for a single indentation on drools trunk:
>> > - java files:
>> > -- 4 spaces
>> > -- 1 tab
>> > - xml files:
>> > -- 4 spaces
>> > -- 3 spaces
>> > -- 2 spaces
>> > -- 1 tab
>> > - drl files:
>> > -- 4 spaces
>> > -- 2 spaces
>> > -- 1 tab
>> > I've seen different types mixed in the same line regularly. One
>> > developer created the line, another developer wrapped it in an if
>> > statement.
>> >
>> > The problem
>> > ===========
>> > What's the problem with mixing these different types?
>> > - It stimulates merge conflicts.
>> > - It obfuscates diffs.
>> > - It hampers with readability.
>> > Some editors show \t as 2 spaces, others as 4, others as 8. Most
>> > notably, in plain HTML, firefox etc show it as 8 spaces IIRC.
>> > So line A with 2 indentations of 4 spaces each
>> > and line B with 2 indentations of 1 tab each
>> > are not rendered starting from the same column.
>> >
>> > The solution proposals
>> > ======================
>> > We should agree on what to use.
>> > Then simply configure it in eclipse/intellij:
>> > - In eclipse you need to set it several times:
>> > -- once in the java style (or import the eclipse-formatter.xml)
>> > -- once in the xml style (even if you import the eclipse-formatter.xml
>> > file)
>> > -- once in the text style (even if you import the eclipse-formatter.xml
>> > file)
>> > - In intellij, do it in code style/general.
>> >
>> >
>> > Proposal 1) Use 4 spaces in java, xml and drl to indent.
>> > Pro:
>> > - The current drools eclipse formatter, trunk/eclipse-formatter.xml
>> > states this for java files. Note that it says nothing about xml or drl
>> > files because those need to be configured separately in eclipse, which
>> > is probably the reason why some of use spaces for java files and tabs
>> > for xml files.
>> > - Most of our java files currently use 4 spaces
>> > - The "Sun java coding conventions" state we should use 4 spaces.
>> > http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconventions-136091.html#262
>> > "Four spaces should be used as the unit of indentation."
>> >
>> > Proposal 2) Use 4 spaces in java and 2 spaces in xml and drl
>> > Pro:
>> > - xml files can have deep indentations and 2 spaces might be clear
>> > enough
>> >
>> > Proposal 3) Use 1 tab in java, xml and drl to indent.
>> > Pro:
>> > - Eclipse uses 1 tab by default for xml files (and maybe also for java
>> > files?)
>> >
>> > My opinion (vote?)
>> > ==================
>> >
>> > Proposal 1) Use 4 spaces in java, xml and drl to indent.
>> >
>> > PS
>> > ==
>> > Please keep this topic isolated to the spaces VS tabs problem.
>> > If you'd like to open the topic of the coding style which differs
>> > between developers, please do so in a separate topic, as that one can be
>> > long and unfulfilling discussion and I 'd like to settle the spaces
>> > quickly...
>> >
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Michael D Neale
> home: www.michaelneale.net
> blog: michaelneale.blogspot.com
>
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>



-- 
diego



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