creat 1207

Where did the 8-column tab come from?

8 column tabs are not a secretarial or publishing standard. The norm for written text seems to be 4 'n' spaces, as was old-style secretary written correspondence (at least my secretary). The proper term, though, is 'indent'.

Tabs originated, TTBOMK - WISM, for making tables of figures. Since figures are variable length ($1.29, $3,143.00) tabs are not conceptually space filled, else if you change the value you have to add-remove spaces. For tables of values 8 character positions are not enough 1,345.78 - and no room for inter-col. white space.

Tabs in computerese came from the old '026 card punch. Tab stops were specified on a user format card that was wrapped around a drum. These were 'no punch' filled.

Early Fortran had some whacky 'xx starts in column yy' requirements. 1, 7, 11, 15, 19, and 23 column tabs, according to IBM:

c-cmds-aixcmds5-tabs.htm

Is 8 columns what an ASR-33 jumped to?

I use-vote 4 columns when displaying tabs, and NO SPACE FILLING. Space filled tabs make files a pain to maintain, result in lost indentation, misread code and employment for consultants (wait, what am I saying ...?).

I have had a lifetime fill of:

{ { proca (n, &p); z += calca (n); imlost (&z, 12 - n); wherearewe (q - z);}} }

In my book, if the programmer can not bother to make the code 'pretty' he most likely can not bother to make it correct.

And then there is

int buffr, Buffr, * bbuffer, bfer10;

Where's my soapbox...

-- Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics. To reply, remove spaces: n o lindan at ix . netcom . com psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com-da-fstop