Re: [External] : Tab completion and electric-indent-mode

[Emanuel Berg]

Drew Adams wrote:

>> `electric-indent-mode` says that in does "On-the-fly
>> Reindentation". What does that mean, and how is it
>> different to normal indentation?
>
> What's "normal indentation"?

I was thinking the same! Capable programmers think the
same ...

Isn't there a PhD thesis in CS on this where they have
subdivided it into categories with pros and cons?

In this thread we have encountered

0. languages that demand indentation to be a certain way (e.g. Python)

0. situations where TABs are mandatory (e.g. a Makefile for
   GNU make), i.e. SPC doesn't work

0. indentation that is done "on the fly" (I agree with whoever
   just said it isn't clear what that's supposed to mean?)

Note 0:
  Indenting the code your way, which often is just one or two
  cases, the rest is the same as everyone else does it - this
  can be a way to "get into" a bunch of code you originally
  didn't write, rather it was handed over to you, be it from
  some intelligence agency, maybe Mossad or the FSB ...

Note 0:
  "May I indent your code?", one should be careful saying to
  a fellow programmer, perhaps.

Note 0:
  With some languages (e.g. Haskell) you often get stuck doing
  indentation manually for ages, and after changing some
  thing, it "has to" be adjusted for that, all of it; I don't
  know if that is because of Haskell's formal approach and
  style that resembles math, or Haskell's inherent
  neuroticism, or if it is some feature of the language, be it
  the support for and focus on pattern matching often and
  a lot, the function arguments not the least ...

- HEY, why aren't the digits increasing?!

Because ... these are technical details,
implementation-specific solutions, as well as general hacker
lore & legend, what I look for is rather styles of the
indentation itself. Like "this indentation style is called
'leap-and-return' and what characterizes it is its focus on
[etc etc]"

- Ah, there you go. Thanks for the answer!

np :)

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