From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 06:03:29 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Documentation: indent-with-non-tab uses tabwidth setting, not just 8 Message-ID: <7v8vc9w5hq.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <7v392hxm94.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> Junio C Hamano writes: >> @@ -559,8 +559,8 @@ core.whitespace:: >> * `space-before-tab` treats a space character that appears immediately >> before a tab character in the initial indent part of the line as an >> error (enabled by default). >> -* `indent-with-non-tab` treats a line that is indented with 8 or more >> - space characters as an error (not enabled by default). >> +* `indent-with-non-tab` treats a line that is indented with `tabwidth` space >> + characters or more as an error (not enabled by default). > > I would rather see this part left untouched. > > Your new text will force people who are not interested in using > non-standard tab width to read through the bulletted list, only to > find "The default tab width is 8". I think that is a regression in > the documentation for more common readers. > > When somebody wants to use `indent-with-non-tab` and gets offended > by the seemingly hardcoded "8" in the description, the reader has > incentive to find out if there is a way to change that 8, and will > find `tabwidth=` in the same bulletted list described, with the > effect it has on both `indent-with-non-tab` and `tab-in-indent`. > > I think that should be sufficient for people who do use non-standard > tab width using tabwidth=. An alternative would be to lose the "8" (or `tabwidth`) from that description. I've always thought that the description of `tabwidth` is clear enough that "8" in the patch is not a hardcoded non-overridable value but is merely a default, but after reading that section a few more times, I no longer think that is the case. I originally wrote "8 or more space" but that wasn't because I thought it was important to stress "8 is the default", but because I didn't think of a better way to say what I wanted to say, which was "if you are filling the indentation with spaces when you could have just typed a tab with a few spaces, this error triggers", in other words "use of this is to encourage indenting with tabs".