From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758056AbXFOUWK (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:22:10 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1757321AbXFOUVv (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:21:51 -0400 Received: from smtp2.linux-foundation.org ([207.189.120.14]:39883 "EHLO smtp2.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757227AbXFOUVu (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:21:50 -0400 Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:21:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Cyrill Gorcunov cc: Jan Engelhardt , "Kok, Auke" , Randy Dunlap , Chris Friesen , dave young , Willy Tarreau , LKML Subject: Re: coding style In-Reply-To: <20070615194140.GE8151@cvg> Message-ID: References: <46721F18.8090303@intel.com> <20070615173206.GA8151@cvg> <4672D246.2040306@nortel.com> <20070615110326.b0762b7a.randy.dunlap@oracle.com> <20070615191804.GC8151@cvg> <4672E6B3.1080205@intel.com> <20070615194140.GE8151@cvg> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, 15 Jun 2007, Cyrill Gorcunov wrote: > | > | from CodingStyle: > | Tabs are 8 characters, and thus indentations are also 8 > | characters. There are heretic movements that try to make > | indentations 4 (or even 2!) characters deep, and that is akin > | to trying to define the value of PI to be 3. > | > | Linus (did he wrote that part?) and the heretics both can have their fun > | without impacting each other. If we wanted to force the user to have > | exactly 8 screen blanks, we should use spaces throughout. I did indeed write that. Tabs are 8 characters in the kernel coding style. And yes, I also wrote the other quote: > Dunno who wrote that part :(. Jan, look: > > Now, some people will claim that having 8-character indentations makes > the code move too far to the right, and makes it hard to read on a > 80-character terminal screen. The answer to that is that if you need > more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix > your program. and I think that's in many ways even more important than the 8-character tab, because deep indentation is unreadable even if you *can* fit it on a single line. In the kernel, we try to split functions up, and perhaps use inline functions etc, and really really avoid deep indentation. Linus