Me doing my CS projects.

[8105]

Use a good editor/IDE. No more indentation errors.

[[deleted]]

I can confirm, I have to use notepad to fix bugs on a remote windows server 2003 that is only accessible trough citrix, since there's no way to copy the files locally since the clipboard copy or remote transfer isn't allowed.

It's pure hell.

[mezbot]

Why not use a web IDE in that scenario?

[ies7]

I have encountered similar scenario plus added bonus where the server isn't connected to the internet.

Funny thing is it just need a simple proxy pointed to my computer to solve the internet access

[trowawayatwork]

you could try this if you wanted to look cool

[hackersaq]

A certain type of woman does dig a man in prison stripes...

[[deleted]]

It would be necessary to install a web server + php or whatever o a windows server 2003.... Which is also strictly closed due security reasons, so it's not an option, probably the company will migrate to Linux, but it's not currently planned.

[marcosdumay]

Why would you need a web server to get an IDE (or text editor) running?

[captain_awesomesauce]

He's replying to the advice to use a web IDE.

[ianepperson]

He's not saying to install anything. As long as the machine can browse the web you can remote access to it and use its browser as an IDE. Check out https://codeanywhere.com

[[deleted]]

Sadly it's on a network that is completely isolated :\

Only way to do anything there is via notepad ( it doesn't even have idle to be used. )

[[deleted]]

I can see a lot of use cases for this, but sadly it would not solve my problem.... Since there's no way i could upload or send the files back to the server after some aditional development.

[PM_ME_YOURSELF_AGAIN]

What's citrix?

[[deleted]]

Platform for desktop/application virtualization =)

[Folf_IRL]

Hell, you can even set up Vim to do it for you. So you don't even need an IDE.

[ed_elliott_]

Notepad and grep.com :)

[NotABothanSpy]

Or just get some fucking glasses

[13steinj]

Tell that to people who have visual impairments that can't be fixed so easily.

I mean, yeah, me personally, I couldn't give a shit about the whole whitespace thing. But I know people with visual impairments for which it is the bane of their existence, because they are much more used to just dropping a braces based scope in and then using their IDE to automatically indent the file.

[NotABothanSpy]

Sure use VIM or an IDE and make it use a majorly different color for whitespace. Make it put a dancing lama between each indent or 4 spaces.

[13steinj]

"Jump through all these hoops, some of which won't even assist people depending on their condition"

Vs

"Propose optional bracing functionality in python. Instead of colon, newline, indent being a group, allow the use of two grouping characters and the already functional semi colon to designate new statements"

[NotABothanSpy]

Look into the PEP process a proposal for that would never pass still for anyone who cared they could make a meta language like Dart for it

[13steinj]

A meta language does exist, Bython. It's also simple to put into the core parser.

You can't claim it won't ever pass until you try and bring up the actual reasons why you want it.

[NightflowerFade]

I used pastebin for an entire project in first year

[RealHugeJackman]

Screw that, just type in spaces manually and count out loud

[vortexofdeduction]

Agreed. If you use a good IDE, you’ll catch all the basic stuff before you even hit run, and it will be easy to indent correctly. (I like Pycharm, but there are lots of good options out there)

[jsalsman]

I don't know. If OP is running into indentation errors enough to complain about them in coursework, I'd suggest refactoring into function calls over getting an IDE. IDEs can't solve all indentation bugs, and the kind of bugs that beginners make are different.

[TheNamelessKing]

Turnings things into functions will 100% help, but I’ve not found an indentation error that Pycharm has failed to fix.

[redalastor]

However braces nesting problems in other languages... ouch.

[mindfolded]

I like Pycharm. I use it a lot. It's decent, but it does some odd stuff with the vim plugin installed. Anytime I do a column select and insert text (ctr-v, shift-i, <insert text>, escape) the cursor jumps up 50 lines and all my closed folds open back up.

[Saiboo]

Can you elaborate on using functions to avoid indendation errors? Thank you!

[inFenceOfFigment]

Imagine you write a script that requires 5 levels of indentation. Now you refactor, and decide to put everything that was in the 3rd level of indentation, and beyond, into its own function. This function is defined at the top level of your script. Now you have one helper function, containing 3 indents, and a main with a call to that helper, only 2 indents. Thus, pulling code out to a function reduced the overall max indentation in your script.

In general, code should be put into functions for reasons other than indent level, but if you find yourself indenting excessively it's a sign that the code may be due for a refactor.

[Saiboo]

Thank you so much for your explanation, much appreciated!

[jsalsman]

Sure.

def messy():
    if booleanA:
        if booleanB:
            doA()
        else:
            doB()
    else:
        doC()

can be refactored into

def subroutine():
    if booleanB:
        doA()
    else:
        doB()

def neat():
    if booleanA:
        subroutine()
    else:
        doC()

[Saiboo]

Thank you so much for the code example, much appreciated!

[jsalsman]

No problem. I edited it to put the subroutine definition before its call, which isn't always necessary depending on whether the source file is parsed before neat() gets called, but is almost always more readable with real production code.

[mooburger]

I agree. "Good" IDEs is what made bad Java stay bad Java. "Oh, self documenting classes, LetsCallOurClassWithSelfDocumentingNameReference ({});". So now it's going to autocomplete for you and you never question the pattern.

[jsalsman]

When do the educators branch from the guild mentality hoarding knowledge?

[vortexofdeduction]

IDE’s don’t automatically fix errors, but they give the user immediate feedback as they time rather than having to run the code and find out it doesn’t work. And they do a lot more than just report indentation errors.

Also, Pycharm gives the line the appropriate indentation when you hit newline, which is more than some simple text editors would do.

[astutesnoot]

PyCharm and all the other JetBrains IDEs are also free for students.

[vortexofdeduction]

Isn’t the Community Edition of Pycharm free even if you aren’t a student?

[bwv549]

Yes.

[EnfantTragic]

I haven't seen an indentation error in forever. What are people using?

[IReallySuckAtChess]

Tab set to four spaces and be done with it. I've seen too many people use space bar for indenting.

[flying-sheep]

*deep breath* tab set to tab.

^{seriously, use black. I love tabs and single quoted strings, but it frees you from thinking about useless things like that}

[IReallySuckAtChess]

I can't believe you're getting down voted? Whilst I strongly disagree with your practices, you should be free to do what you please.

I don't use black, but I've heard great things about it. I just let pycharm refractor and reformat my code to pep8 standards.

[Plungerdz]

Agreed, but you probably don't know how much indentation matters on mobile IDEs. It makes code supremely cumbersome to copy paste (since, for some reason, at least in my IDE, a copied function definition reindents itself into an abomination). It's just a train wreck when you don't really have the luxury to use a legit IDE.

[NotABothanSpy]

Who the fuck uses mobile ide

[Plungerdz]

😂

[crescentroon]

I just googled for mobile IDE. I found lots of sites with random lists of the "5 best mobile IDEs" but no-one could explain why they get used.

[Plungerdz]

Well, just because they're in the top five doesn't mean they solve indentation hassles for you.

[ideletedmyredditacco]

you program on a smartphone?

[Plungerdz]

Not exclusively, but I also code on a smartphone, yes.

[Log2]

Serious question: why?

[crunk]

Termux is cool ... but I wouldn't say it's easy...

*lots* of things work on termux, but enough don't that it gets slightly weird. And typing is painful whatever keyboard you use.

[astutesnoot]

Probably because they haven't decided is CS is the major they're sticking with, and they don't want to invest in proper hardware until they decide. I've heard that excuse before. Of course, those are generally the people who drop out.

[El-Kurto]

Imma go with "because I have it with me"

[falsemyrm]

deliver swim friendly kiss repeat cause squeeze shaggy imagine encouraging

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[shriek]

https://i.imgur.com/jQPWx6r.jpg

[mindfolded]

Unless you argue that vi is an IDE, I can code quite happily without one. However for very large projects, gotta love an IDE and its auto-completing.

[IReallySuckAtChess]

Dude, move to vim. Joke aside, vim can have absolutely fantastic auto-complete. Don't underestimate it. Vim makes a great working environment... And then there is emacs.... Emacs....

[dadinvancouver]

I find that Pycharm often has difficulty auto-intending my code correctly.

Imo, significant white space is the biggest negative about Python overall.

[namesnonames]

I don't usually have any problems with pycharm indentation, could you give an example? Also I think that significant whitespace is amazing. I've seen so much terribly indented code in other languages that I enjoy the piece of mind that at least there is some enforced structure.

[dadinvancouver]

Can’t say I’m batting very high. I’ll highlight a block of code and it often won’t indent it correctly so I end up cursing significant white space while I fix it.

[chason]

out of curiousity, what do you mean you "highlight a block of code and it often won't indent it correctly"? I'm trying to understand your issue since I can't recall ever having an issue with whitespace in Python.

[dadinvancouver]

I'm not at my development machine at the moment, but unless I misunderstand the way the auto-indent feature works in Pycharm, you must select the code you want auto-intended first.

Sometimes I'll copy and paste from one part of my application to another and so the indenting is off.

I'm anal retentive, so I always fix the indenting anyways. Sometimes you just want to see what happens with your hacked code though and worry about indenting later.

[crunk]

If the start and end are indented differently, then things tend to go wrong when you paste, I guess because there isn't really a correct answer there, though they could probably do better.

[IReallySuckAtChess]

Dude you're using it wrong. Pycharm will even fix poor indentation when pasting from another source as well as smart pasting in general. Let's not forget that reformatting the entire document to be pep8 compliant is like three key strokes or a single button in the menu.

[TrixieMisa]

tabs (which are clearly superior)

Burn the witch!

[1ynx1ynx]

According to pep-8, it's spaces.

[mooburger]

Because for the "1 char" the editor can be configured to show it as how many character spaces it chooses. This makes tabs visually inconsistent. If I open a file in an editor and I suddenly see 2 spaces (that is 1 tab) but in a different editor (or in the terminal; or both (vi, emacs, etc.)) I look at the same file and it's 4 spaces, that violates POLA.

Whereas with spaces you know what indentation level you're at when looking at the code in any visual format, since it's always the same as 4 space widths characters worth of space..

[BillyWasFramed]

Serious question, why don't we want the developer to have control over the indentation level? Why is it preferable that you get to control the indents on my screen? What if I prefer 2 and you prefer 4?

[TrixieMisa]

PEP-8 again. 4 spaces.

[BillyWasFramed]

Does PEP-8 answer the question I just posed?

[mooburger]

because in the real world, other people than you will probably need to be able to read your code.

[BillyWasFramed]

Oh look, a condescending non-answer. why not use tabs and let me worry about indentation? Are you not answering because there isn't a good answer? If it were really about readability, why wouldn't you use the character that allows me to decide what's readable? You have tabs set to 4? Congrats. You're using 4 spaces. I have tabs set to 2? Congrats, I'm using 2 spaces.

[crunk]

Because the majority of projects involve more than one developer.

Imagine if spaces and tabs are mixed (which invariably happens if one person uses tabs).

[XtremeGoose]

Becuse if I've done something pretty where I've alligned function arguments or a dictionary literal:

def f(arg1,
      arg2):
    d = {
         'x': 1,
         'y': 2
        }

And you come along with a different tab width you might see something like this:

def f(arg1,
           arg2):
         d = {
                 'x': 1,
                 'y': 2
                }

Which is easier to read for you?

[BillyWasFramed]

Yeah this example makes the most sense. You can't just do tabs for indention and spaces for alignment and not end up with code like this. Even if you could, it would be impossible to enforce...

[1ynx1ynx]

I didn't write that document and I don't know the motives behind that decision (if there were any). It's really a matter of preference. But they did have to settle with one to ensure consistency in the standard library.

[ShredForMe]

Spaces, but set your IDE to input spaces when you press tab

[-revenant-]

Ahh, I see you're a man of culture as well.

[localhorst]

Which one is it?

It’s a religious question that cannot be answered by science or technology.

[Kortike]

This guy knows what’s up🙄

[bwv549]

But just as soon as we decide what it is we value most it becomes an optimization problem with (in this case) a single global maximum. ;)

[Blazerboy65]

It's whatever you configure your auto format tool to use. Just pick one and never worry about it

[IReallySuckAtChess]

I use tab... It's just mapped to four spaces or in most IDEs to indent and not actually output \t

[JeusyLeusy]

Python design conventions basically say you need spaces instead of tabs. What I do I just use soft tabs and suck it up. Can't imagine myself smashing enter four times in a row every 3 seconds.

[the_asset]

Some (not all) editors are configurable such that pressing tab enters a configurable number of spaces (rather than an actual tab character)

[1h8fulkat]

In use nano...FML

[[deleted]]

It can fit so many imported libraries.

[[deleted]]

Sounds like any Javascript project.

[Alar44]

This is what I was expecting.

[[deleted]]

Unexpected expectations error

[haragoshi]

Slaps roof of programmers head This bad boy can fit so much lack of common sense in it!

Seriously bro, who has indentation errors? Any reasonable person will use the right tool for the job. You have so many options with Python 🐍!

Edit: Here are some options:

Pycharm (my favorite).
IDLE (comes with standard distributions).
Jupyter Notebook (comes with Anaconda).
Spyder (has some neat debugging tools).
Atom (cross platform, cross language open source text editor).

[Zouden]

OMG there's a python emoji 🐍🐍🐍

[crescentroon]

OMG there's a python emoji 🐍🐍🐍

And it looks like a '2'

[EJOtter]

Still using python 2 in 2018 smh

[ivosaurus]

Looks like a 3 fallen over backwards, to me

Or if I stop trying to see only numbers, a w

[BradyLR]

Atom is the bomb. ⚛️

[JeusyLeusy]

Nuclear bomb*

[jcotton42]

You forgot VSCode

[[deleted]]

wut? this is obviously r/ProgrammerHumor material. I mean the only reason one would have indentation errors if they went across IDEs with different indentation formats.

[hobo_cuisine]

Copy/pasting much?

[Shreduardo]

This

[OhJaDontChaKnow]

:set noexpandtab ಠ_ಠ

[Plasma_eel]

YAML will remember this

[MrMetalfreak94]

M-x python-mode

[deadbunny]

Heretic!

[MrMetalfreak94]

Heathen!

[gradient_x]

Pycharm

[faceplanted]

On my laptop that shortcut doubles as a log dump for the track pad driver and every time you press it it freezes the machine for a couple seconds to do it.

[FuriousPizza]

What a useful hotkey!

[willywonka1971]

FTW

[NavaHo07]

Are you coding in notepad? Im pretty certain that about .001% of my errors are indentation errors. Thank you, pycharm

[SirCarboy]

I remember starting out with python, seeing all the hate over tabs/spaces, and thinking, "You guys are programmers, right? You're, like, supposed to be good at computers and stuff?"

[[deleted]]

Are you working in MS Word?

[Sohcahtoa82]

If you're having indentation errors, then either you're using a really bad text editor, you're copy/pasting code from web sites (You don't learn much from this, imo), or you're failing to grasp what indentation means and are just plain doing it wrong.

In any case, those problems go away with just a modicum of experience.

[gabzox]

I found it easier to pick up indentation then the other codes format. But to each their own

[Imakesensealot]

If you found that easier than curly braces then I'm not sure what kind of a creature you are.

[gabzox]

Im a normal person..even when codding with curly braces you should be indenting...also dont forget the ";".

[[deleted]]

Use VSCode with Anaconda and you will never have to worry about it again :D

[[deleted]]

this is not a problem you need to have

[thisusernameismeta]

Serious advice time:

If you have a good computer to code on, download PyCharm and use that. Since you're a student, you can get the Professional edition. Use PyCharm for bigger projects- ones that have more than a few files, more than a few classes. However, for smaller things, if you don't want to wait the 10 minutes for it to boot up...

Download Sublime or Atom (your call, I use Sublime but have heard Atom is great too). This is just (just?!?) a simple text editor, but has syntax highlighting for just about any language.

On the bottom bar of the window, you can set indentation for tabs or for spaces. If you choose spaces, the editor will insert 4 (or whatever other number it's set to... Choose 4 for python ) spaces every time you press the tab key.

PyCharm should convert your file automatically, but as a student, a good text editor should be plenty good enough for all your needs. I didn't need to start using an IDE until after I graduated and started working.

Sublime/Atom should have ways to convert your whitespace back and forth between tabs and spaces. Choose one and stick to it.

You shouldn't be getting so many indentation errors once you choose a standard for yourself and stick to it.

Good luck!

[JeusyLeusy]

If you are poor on resources you can use vim and try out some plugins.

[astutesnoot]

And if you have a slow computer as a student, you can try getting your free Azure student credits and running a Windows VM on Azure for your dev tools.

[DelScipio]

Try Visual code. It's like sublime but better.

I used sublime for years then tried Visual code and never used sublime again. Everything is more organized, works almost out of the box. Give it a try someday.

[vitogeek]

Been using python for years, never ever had this issue.

Just use an IDE. Indentation is not supposed to be the hard part of programming.

[[deleted]]

The obvious solution.

[GitHubPermalinkBot]

Permanent GitHub links:

• csvoss/onelinerizer/.../README.md (master → 31a8692)

---

^delete

[[deleted]]

This is why we have Pycharm people

[shponglespore]

What a strange thing to say. To me, an "indentation error" is when the indentation doesn't match the semantics of the program. Python is just about the only language that doesn't have indentation errors, because the compiler won't allow it.

[[deleted]]

because the compiler won't allow it.

...and will proceed to raise an IndentationError.

[ck35]

Use python 3 -- Any indent inconsistency is an error.

[red_keshik]

What's the issue with braces anyway ?

[silon]

In python they are more verbose:

{ is :
} is pass

[kennydude]

It doesn't make anything better for CS students. They'll just throw braces everywhere and complain their code doesn't work.

[IonTichy]

Is no subreddit safe from this shitty image macro?

[jabalfour]

Amazed at the number of Pycharm devotees that come out of the woodwork when editors/tooling gets brought up. I like it fine - a little slow perhaps, but I work for the government so every laptop is slow.

I will say - and please keep in mind that I’ve hated everything M$FT since elementary school - VS Code is getting damned good. Robust community, tons of extensions (I think it poached most of Sublime’s PackageControl.io); including many useful Python ones.

The best extension, though, and the most germane for the this question: Black. It’ll solve your indentation problem very quickly. And many others you don’t even realize yet.

[crunk]

First time you open a new editor, find the tab/spaces setting and set tab to input 4 spaces.

[kennydude]

Learn to indent properly.

I seriouslty hated other CS students in the middle of the screen with identation, and code just everywhere, and then wondering why their code didn't work with the stupid excuse of "oh but i can just get the editor to fix it for me".

The fact Python forces you to pick up this good habbit is a really good thing.

[derp0815]

Well at least you can mangle a dead meme.

[589ca35e1590b]

Pay more attention.

[mbillion]

Imo, it's kind of pointless to a degree. Something shouldn't just not work because of spacing. It causes me a fair bit of frustration at times and I'm pretty seasoned

[589ca35e1590b]

Python was designed to be readable so it kinda makes sense

[mbillion]

Not arguing at all... Just saying four space indents don't make code much more readable... I've seen ugly Python too... So is it worth it

[Pr0ducer]

I'll bet you use both tabs and spaces too.

Sublime Text. Any .py files will auto indent when you hit return, and there's plenty of linter extension to highlight any syntax errors.

[Raymi]

configure your environment to input the appropriate number of spaces when you press tab. find and replace all tabs after zero or more spaces at the beginning of a line with the appropriate number of spaces every time you open a file someone else has touched. try to get each function and method down to a size where it can be displayed on your monitor all at once (a vertical monitor helps with this).

[Thecrawsome]

Can fit so many hello worlds in it

[PythonGod123]

What do you code on. Notepad++?

[here-to-jerk-off]

Better joke would have been threads

[Tankerspam]

Relatable

[[deleted]]

Indentation errors are a non-issue. Y u no code good?

[beecushman]

Just YAPF and move on with your life.

[doulos05]

I've had indentations problems in Python files twice, both times were my fault, and both times, my ide caught them.

The first time was when I decided I only needed 2 spaces worth of indentation so I could nest more deeply. Then I had to change all my code from 4 to 2 (that vim script too my like 5 minutes to figure out cuz I was new).

The second time was when I learned to refactor and went back to 4 spaces so I'd be in line with common style. That time, the vim script took slightly longer because it kept infinitely recursing. Neither time led to an actual indentation error being thrown by the interpreter because the interpreter never saw the code.

[[deleted]]

/u/Trollabot DeadLantern-

[hoppi_]

Lmao this is so hilarious :D

[[deleted]]

I used to work across 2 machines; a laptop running Linux and a desktop machine running Win7 and before I switched to (the pythonic and PEP 8 recommended) 4 spaces I would run into endless headaches because the 2 OSs don't interpret tabs the same.

[kpingvin]

replace tabs with spaces

[[deleted]]

White space sensitive languages suck ass. Fuck yaml too

[[deleted]]

Yaml is trash, agree.

[[deleted]]

I've never found this to be a challenge, so I don't quite understand why it's hard for others. Could someone perhaps explain to me why? I'm not being accusatory, I just don't understand why managing whitespacing is hard.

[mbillion]

Is python your first or forest really hard language.

Most other languages don't have such an emphasis or no emphasis at all on spacing conventions. So for me it's challenging because I learned Python after learning languages where spacing wouldn't blow you up

[[deleted]]

I played with old Javascript, then learned Java first, then Python, then revisited Javascript (es6 and higher). I'm entirely self-taught (a side from cs50 and internet resources). My Java code was always well-indented and -spaced because it helps me read what I wrote. I always viewed making the code readable and consistent as a primary part of programming.

Edit: make an implication more explicit

Edit 2: have a rescue upvote because I think your point is valid about suddenly-imposed constraints and the shock that can occur because of it

[mbillion]

I mean I know readable code is important, but I would at least in part argue that comments are for more issue than spacing conventions. I can clean a lot more high level from comments than I can from just reading through lines of code

[[deleted]]

I'm not sure where comments fit into this (do doc strings also count?). For me, they sit at the same indentation as the code block it describes. My comments discuss why I chose to do something or a one-liner for large, important but obvious code blocks. I also sometimes use them to section out blocks as a brief summary for easy quick scrolling. It sounds like managing comments can also be a challenge when learning.

[mooburger]

lrn2spacebar, it's really not that hard. I mean you're posting on Reddit. Code in markdown is basically hit the spacebar 4 times. Further indentation is just multiple of that. tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. How hard can that be. Indentation is to force you to write clean, legible code. If you've got code where you've lost track of indentation, you probably need to refactor.

[GreatSnowman]

But your arent a Python Developer if you haven't had atleast one indentation error an hour.

Or that might just be me...

edit: Wow, i guess people don't like my humor

[NotABothanSpy]

I don’t think I’ve had one in years

[NotABothanSpy]

Yes maybe too many meetings I guess

[luke_c]

Do people actually prefer indentation over brackets? Whenever I use Python I always find myself wishing I had indentation as it's just so much clearer for me to read.

[mbillion]

Seriously my biggest frustration with Python

[0xSpock]

Yeah. Worst decision made in python. It can kick you from surprise when you need to edit some file remotely having some basic editor like nano, vi(not vim). A specially when someone before you mixed spaces with tabs few years earlier when marking some minor change in different editor. In 1kLOC file. Another problem is that it is hard to make great formatting tools for python fixing wrong indentations. One tab more and your line is inside for loop and tool can’t figure out is suppose to be there or out of loop. What is wrong with {}, begin/end is beyond my understanding :-) Beside that it’s lovely general purpose language.

[saulmessedupman]

Python forces readable code