Re: <PRE tab-width=4> (Thumbs Down)

Wayne Long (wcl@ome.sps.mot.com)
Fri, 27 Jan 95 12:46:22 EST

> but tabs can considerably reduce document portability.
>
> Lee

For the reasons you sight (legibility), it isn't wise to use proportional
fonts when typing ascii text. None of my X11 or Mac editors default to
proportional fonts for plain ascii. (Hmm, my mosaic even uses a non-
proportional font when display non-html text.)

I know of no programmers using proportional fonts in there c++, c, asm,
pascal, or fortran programs. I have no immediate colleagues that use
proportional fonts in the email editors. It simply isn't wise.

For proportional font documents, a wordprocessor (frame, word, etc.) is
used instead - and _then_ you have a unique binary (and mime file type).


There _are_ practical reasons (as well as some stupid ones) why tabs are
used in ascii text today. No amount of wishful thinking can change that.
I don't see this changing in the near future (ten years at minimum).


{Typed in a fixed-font text editor (mailtool). I don't use tabs with it,
but I've received plenty of email that did contain them.}