| I would say that the problem is "SomeReallyFancyTypeName" where you've created a ridiculously long type name (one of the reasons I avoid Windows programming at all costs). That aside, editors don't handle tabbing very well. It's far more space-efficient to insert two tabs instead of 8 spaces, but space and bandwidth are so cheap these days, no one can be arsed to fix what is viewed as a minor problem (use enough spaces and sooner or later, we're talking real bandwidth). Then, there's the moment where we have to decide what those all those tabs (and sometimes spaces) mean, depending on the language, the layout rules, personal preferences, etc. For example, some people write Python with 2 spaces at the beginning of a line (which is plainly heresy). Others write it with 4 spaces (which is damnable blasphemy). Which is right? And how many other languages are like this?(hint: any language in which layout is indented for any reason) And concerning line length - what's the maximum allowable length before wrapping? You say 80, I say 132 (sometimes more), but I run terminal in a full-screen mode with 13-pt type, single-screened, never side-by-side. Personally, I've learned my lesson. I'm waiting for editors to smarten up before I muck around with proportional fonts for code. Again. |
You mentioned that "editors don't handle tabbing very well". All the editors I use most frequently - IntelliJ IDE, Visual Studio, MonoDevelop, Komodo, Sublime Text, UltraEdit - handle both tabs and proportional fonts without any problem, so that hasn't been an issue for me. I'm curious to know what editors have trouble with tabs.
Anyway, I try not to worry too much about tabs vs. spaces. My only real objection is two-space indents. That's just not enough for many people including myself.
Of course many editors don't support proportional fonts, but that doesn't cause a problem for those of us who like to use proportional fonts in the editors that support them. It's really easy to write code that is equally readable in a monospaced or proportional font.
Regarding the line lengths, my coding style lends itself to very short line lengths, as shown in the example above. I think that helps give some freedom to use wider indentation.