I write code, indentation is something that the editor just does automatically. If I want to change indent settings I just mark the complete buffer, press tab, and magic happens.

I've been using python for various stuff for a few years now as well, and the indent thing still annoys me.

Things get messy though, when you have to break the rules of indentation once in a while or when you have “improper “ indentation. Whitespace is a stupidly messy thing. Indentation should be a style guide, not part of the language semantics.

No, it really is horrible. I’m an old timer who learned on FORTRAN and other languages that were still suffering from the punchcard era. Making logic based on character positioning, and adding unnecessary restriction, is just so frustrating and tedious. We got away from such constraints by the 1990’s. Let’s not go back.

Sure enough, my kid’s Comp Sci teacher tried to use Python because he read how easy it is to use, but no one succeeded because of the formatting. No one succeeded except my kid, who also became a rock star by helping kids reformat. Anyhow, back when computers were primitive and limited, such restrictions were understandable. They’re not anymore.

Currently I’m a fan of Groovy. All the capability of Java without silly requirements like semi-colons. All the simplicity of Python without silly formatting restrictions