What if instead of having the IDE special case space characters at the start of a line, we had a special character that could represent a variable width space?

[–] kakes@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What if we did that, and then wanted to align something?

[–] fidodo@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Then you use the variable width space for code indentation, then, when you're at the code indentation level, you'd switch to spaces for alignment. If the IDE special cased all space characters at the start of the line you wouldn't have that flexibility. You could also easily create a linter that ensured that the variable width space always has the correct indentation level, and ignore the standard space characters after it.

[–] kakes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

You're entirely correct. Plus, I hate the idea of changing the width of spaces for any reason lol.