RE: Understanding Emacs and Tabs

[Bingham, Jay]

On: Monday, May 19, 2003 11:38 AM Kai Großjohann wrote:

>Oh, there's someone being very careful.  I hope I can stand a healthy
>dose of criticism :-)  Point taken, I hope.

Yes, I was trying not to start a running battle, but the comment was true, I 
really have learned a lot from you.

>I think you meant to say disabled.  The default for indent-tabs-mode
>is to be enabled.

I said what I meant to say, but my statement was incorrect due to a lack of 
comprehension on my part.

>Okay, so the full story is this: in the default Emacs configuration,
>M-i will insert a tab up to the 120th column in a line.  And this is
>very close to always.
>
>And there are two variables that come into play: the variable
>indent-tabs-mode and the variable tab-stop-list.

Now I understand.  And now that I realize that you are talking about a 
variable, not a mode (when I saw the -mode at the end of the name I just jumped 
to the conclusion that indent-tabs-mode was a function that enabled a "mode"), 
I see that I do indeed have indent-tabs-mode set to t in my environment and 
that my tab-stop-list's value is a list of numbers that ends at 120.

>Yeah, maybe I'm trying to be too exact.  Maybe an introduction doesn't
>need to be so exact.  It was just a knee-jerk reaction on my side --
>when somebody says `always' I'll answer, `but not when the full moon
>shines through the window and you're sitting with your back to the
>door'.
>
>It's probably silly.  I'm sorry.

Apology accepted, although it was not necessary and I am glad that you had a 
knee-jerk reaction because once again you have enlightened me.

Thanks,
-_
J_)
C_)ingham
.    HP - NonStop Austin Software & Services - Software Quality Assurance
.    Austin, TX
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