Are there any pitfalls with using whitespace in Python?

Question

At the moment I have never had a problem with whitespace in Python (although I\'ve only used it in two projects and I was the only programmer). What are some potential pitf

Answer 1

I used to think that the white space issues was just a question of getting used to it.

Someone pointed out some serious flaws with Python indentation and I think they are quite valid and some subconcious understanding of these is what makes experienced programs nervious about the whole thing:-

• Cut and paste just doesnt work anymore! You cannot cut boiler plate code from one app and drop it into another app.
• Your editor becomes powerless to help you. With C/Jave etc. there are two things going on the "official" curly brackets indentation, and, the "unnofficial" white space indentation. Most editors are able reformat hte white space indentation to match the curly brackets nesting -- which gives you a string visual clue that something is wrong if the indentation is not what you expected. With pythons "space is syntax" paradigm your editor cannot help you.
• The sheer pain of introducing another condition into already complex logic. Adding another if then else into an existing condition involves lots of silly error prone inserting of spaces on many lines line by hand.
• Refactoring is a nightmare. Moving blocks of code around your classes is so painful its easier to put up with a "wrong" class structure than refactor it into a better one.