Which is the correct way to create bullet points in Markdown — using spaces or tabs?

Which is the correct way to create bullet points in Markdown — using space+hyphen or tab+hyphen ?

- first level bullet point
 - space+hyphen 
- first level bullet point
    - tab+hyphen 
8 points · 13 comments · view on lemmy.world

13 Comments

boatswain@infosec.pub · 5 pts · 1y (2 replies)

I believe either will work, so your call. If you really want to spark a tabs vs spaces holy war, I'll throw my vote in for tabs: they're semantic, whereas spaces are not--the meaning of a tab is "this is one level of indentation". Using spaces for indentation is like using <span class="italic"> instead of <i> for italics.

gumnos@mastodon.bsd.cafe · 4 pts · 1y

@boatswain

Seconding the semantic nature of tabs (have your $EDITOR display a literal tab as anything from 1 to N spaces), but I'm stuck in a world where Python standardized on 4-space indentation, so the ol' "When in Rome" adage applies. :sigh:

@happeningtofry99158

happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

thanksalot! I guess I will stick with tab then

667@lemmy.radio · 4 pts · 1y (7 replies)

I’ve always used hyphens because if I later need to look at or parse the source, it may be difficult to tell what my intentions were. Moreso if for whatever reason I need to code something to handle my files—an unlikely case, but the small effort over time will be instantly realized.

happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y (6 replies)

I'm sorry my post was a bit unclear. My question is, do you use space+hyphen or tab+hyphen for indentation?

phr@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 1y (4 replies)

i insist on my editors replacing tab with four spaces .. so spaces. i do see the pain for parsing tho.

happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y (3 replies)

In Obsidian, I can easily indent a bullet point with tab and Obsidian uses tab indentation by default, is there a way to change that (to space indentation)?

phr@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 1y (1 reply)

under options>editor>behaviour theres a bullet "indent using tabs" and "tab indent size"

happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

Thank you so very much

phr@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 1y

frankly i dont know, it has been a while since i used it.

667@lemmy.radio · 1 pts · 1y

Oh I see! I am a tab kind of person, so I do tabs.

korthrun@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 1y (1 reply)

In the great tabs v spaces debate I am pro spaces.

However context is important. In Obsidian I can't press shift+space to unindent, I can do this with shift+tab. So in Obsidian I use tabs.

I don't intend to access these files outside of Obsidian 99% of the time, so I never bothered to flip on the setting that inserts spaces when you use the tab key.

happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

thanksalot! I guess I will stick with tab then