[Fedora-packaging] Strawman: standardize 8-space tab width

[Christian Krause]

Hello,

Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On 08/21/2009 10:46 AM, Jussi Lehtola wrote:
>> These projects have standardized their tab widths. Why shouldn't Fedora?
> 
> Why should it? Because some editors are unable to grok tabs in usable
> ways and because some newbies are unable to cope with it?

I was the reviewers who complained about the usage of a non-standard tab
width. Please let me explain my intention behind this:


1. Spec files are not to be meant to be read only by the original
packager. The should be in a format that _any_ packager can easily read
and understand them. This is a quite generic requirement to all kind of
communication. ;-) The current FPG cover this by requiring the
legibility of the spec file.

IMHO this does not include only meaningful comments, indentations etc.,
but also the overall formatting when the file is viewed within an editor.


2. If the file was written with a specific (non-standard, please see
below) tab width, it is quite hard to read. Sure, it is possible to
change the tab width in the editor, but the question is: to what?
So in order to display the spec file correctly it is necessary to guess
the used tab width. I really consider this as not very practical.


3. It is correct that different projects use different tab widths.
However, there are some widths which are more often used and so became
more or less "standard". IMHO vi(m), (x)emacs and even the web browser
uses 8 chars tab width per default.
(During reviews I use quite often the browser just to have a first
glance a the provided spec file...)


I definitively second that proposal.

Best regards,
Christian