Of course tabs have changed throughout the years. Look at what word processors do with tabs. They actually use it for alignment within proportional text.

> In your bizarro world there is something magical and unique about the first non-whitespace character than makes it's "alignment" different than the alignment of everything else

There is. It's called indenting. And it /is/ different than, say, aligning "=" in following lines.

> There is a set of standards that fix this problem once and for all

Exactly. And it's called: Tabs for indenting, spaces for alignment. Works beautifully. Always has, always will.

> But if tabs are for indention and spaces are for alignment, as you say, then spaces can only work for alignment for one and ONLY one value of a tab

Wrong.

<pre>
<TAB>int a = 5;_// Explanatory comment:
<TAB>___________// Foobar
</pre>

(Let's hope those pre-tags work. Because they don't work in the preview, although my Comment Mode is now set to text + html. In either case, it should hopefully be clear what I mean.)

> as long as don't have to scratch my head to figure out how they liked their tabs

Which is why the code style guidelines in my projects explain how to use tabs: Tabs for indenting, spaces for alignment.
The same sentence I've used several times in this discussion. Should I draw you an even more detailed explanation?

> You're the Nazi here

*sigh* Using the word Nazi in such a callous manner is really not a good idea.

> I have to figure out what your tabs mean

Tabs for indenting, spaces for alignment. Not that hard.

Of course, if you're using spaces *and* tabs for indenting, I have to guess which of those each of your spaces are. Now that's guesswork.

So because apparently some people will inevitable do it wrongly, it's best to just not do it at all? I find this idea completely and utterly weird.
Everybody will spell things wrongly every now and then, so just ban coherent spelling altogether? Some people will use this interface in the wrong way, so just throw out the whole shebang?

I'm feeling reminded by the Hitchhiker quote about how coming down from the trees was a mistake.

> Use Unix "unexpand" and shove in tabs everywhere you want

Which is of course not always possible, because using spaces for indent *and* alignment is lossy. You are expressing two different concepts with the same character. Which is exactly my fricking point.

> But for the source code I have to deal with

You are (probably) not the only person having to deal with the source code. If you're so egoistical that you're making it harder for everyone else by mangling two different things together, I sincerly hope you and I are never working on the same codebase together.

Also, completely off-topic: Is it just me, or is the Comment Post Mode option wonky? I can't seem to switch it away from "Code" anymore. No matter what I set, it's not correctly saved. It's back to code when I want to comment.

> So, since apparently most everybody uses tabs incorrectly

Well, the solution is to educate stupid people, not letting them continue in their stupidity.

> and there does not seem to be any point at all with using tabs instead of spaces

There is.
1) Differentiate the semantic differences of indenting and alignment
2) Let everyone change their level of indentation to their own choice

> Are there really people who get their jollies by changing the tab value to make code look different on their screens

Yes.

> Tab (ascii 9) goes back to typewriters and teletypes and is effectively an 8 indent

A tab is not 8 spaces, it's a tab. Which is the point.

> So if you don't want an 8-space indent, don't use a tab

A tab is not 8 spaces, it's a tab. Which is the point.

> If you do want an 8-space indent, you can't assume the viewers device will treat it that [way]

A tab is not 8 spaces, it's a tab. Which is the point.

No, this just means you (and/or the people you work with) are using tabs in the wrong way.
Tabs for indenting, spaces for alignment. Makes sense logically too, because those two functions are fundamentally different.

I.e. it should be:

<TAB>int_a;________//_Hello
<TAB>int_whatever;_//_Yeah

Where <TAB> is a tab and _ is a space.

Works beautifully. Think, people!

Actually, there are 2 other freeware'd adventure games running in ScummVM: "Lure of the Temptress" and "Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back".

There is an outdated and AFAIK currently unmaintained (another chance for someone with some free time to step in and help out) Linux port of AGS.

As for the games, some work on Linux, as long as they don't use any external DLLs (obviously). Unfortunately, there are many who do (popular DLLs being SFX for raindrops and flashlights, last I checked).

As in beer, but not as in speech. :P

Well, just to be clear: The thing with residual is not some abstract status, but a lack of interested devs with enough free time.

Anybody here who qualifies for that is free to check in #scummvm on FreeNode and offer their help. :P