It is SO STUPID that spaces are widely preferred for indentation in code.

For the past, I don’t know, two hours I’ve been trying to fix YAML formatting issues that could have been fixed without any human intervention if only tabs were used. (It’s a big file, hence the duration.) (I know YAML doesn’t support tabs. That’s kind of my point.)

I even reluctantly asked Gemini (forced upon me by work; I was hoping it would change my mind in this case) why anyone would prefer spaces. It said the same irrelevant thing most people say: because some tools don’t support tabs properly.

Know what that sounds like to me? A problem with the fucking tool.

I don’t know if this is the right place to post this, but I can’t think of a better option.

  • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
    115·
    7 days ago

    Yeah well you’re wrong.

    Braces help everyone, just like punctuation does. Try and read a Cormack McCarthy novel and the importance of punctuation to denote structure for readability will become immediately apparent.

    Using whitespace as a delimiter is just nerds min maxing too far.

    • fonix232@fedia.io
      31·
      7 days ago

      A novel by definition isn’t a data structure meant for serialisation. Your argument is akin to going up to a mapmaker and telling them do to their job different because van Gogh did it different and look how his art turned out!

      Braces in a data structure help nobody but computers. That’s why I specified that for HUMAN READABILITY, YAML is superior to JSON, even though they easily translate between each other. Try to read a single-line, optimised for transport JSON vs try to read a neatly formatted YAML document. YAML is inherently closer to how humans perceive data.

      • anotherandrew@lemmy.mixdown.caEnglish
        4·
        7 days ago

        Except when some chucklehead used two character intents. This is why tabs are superior; if you want to be squinty, be squinty. The rest of us get 8 char intents that make the logic easy to see.