Date:         Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:25:45 -0400
Reply-To:     Arthur Tabachneck <art297@ROGERS.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Arthur Tabachneck <art297@ROGERS.COM>
Subject:      Re: tabs vs spaces in SAS
Comments: To: Paul Dorfman <sashole@BELLSOUTH.NET>

I vote on the side of Paul, Tom and Quentin.  I HATE it when anyone sends me
code with tab characters and never, NEVER use them in my own code.

Art
-----
On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:03:06 -0400, Paul Dorfman <sashole@BELLSOUTH.NET>
wrote:

>Yevgeny,
>
>First, I don't feel I have a right to tell anyone ("recommend") what style
>to use or, for that matter, how to render it. If one find the tabs utile,
so
>be it, etc.
>
>Now that it's out of the way, personally I avoid tabs (or any other
>unprintable characters) in my SAS code like plague, and by the same token
>prefer not to inherit code with such characters embedded. Instead of
dealing
>with maintenance woes caused by unprintables, I would rather spend extra
>time to indent with spaces. Whilst I do consider code indentation and
>alignment extremely important, I do not find SAS sufficiently verbose to
>make code typing and editing take more than maybe 20 per cent of the
>development time. Also, since when I work under DMS, I always use the SAS
>Program Editor (ISPF-derived) and never the Enhanced Editor, moving blocks
>of code horizontally is exceedingly easy, as Tom Abernathy has already
>pointed out. Besides, in Program Editor, the line command COLS displays a
>ruler, so it is really easy to check alignment if need be.
>
>My tabby $.02.
>
>Kind regards
>------------
>Paul Dorfman
>Jax, FL
>------------
>
>On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:15:17 -0400, Bolotin Yevgeniy
><YBolotin@SCHOOLS.NYC.GOV> wrote:
>
>>What WILL the others think?
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Data _null_; [mailto:iebupdte@gmail.com]
>>Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 1:13 PM
>>To: Bolotin Yevgeniy
>>Subject: Re: Coding Standards
>>
>>You have it backwards.  SAS program files should not contain real tab
>>characters.  Ask the list.  I will be interested to see what others
>>think.
>>
>>On 3/28/12, Bolotin Yevgeniy <YBolotin@schools.nyc.gov> wrote:
>>> Exactly my point
>>> So using tab characters with custom tab stops, if you add a line and i
>>add a
>>> line, you see:
>>>     Line1
>>>     Line2
>>> I see
>>>       Line1
>>>       Line2
>>>
>>>
>>> Using spaces, we both see
>>>     Line1
>>>       Line2