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The SciTE text editor has an option in its configuration files called "tab.timmy.whinge.level".

What's the story behind this name?

As I understand it, "whinge" is a British-ism for "whine" -- Google defines it as "complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way". So who exactly is Timmy, and what is he whining about? There's got to be a story there.

It's not really relevant to anything, but every time I see that option in the docs, I have to wonder.

Joe White
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  • I've never noticed that before, would be interesting to know though! – TabbyCool Jun 02 '11 at 13:00
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    Looks likely to be a reference to Tim Peters, major Python contributor and author of the original tabnanny (amongst many other things!). I can't find anything authoritative, so I just leave it as a comment. – Michael J. Barber Jun 07 '11 at 05:06
  • Just a suggest did u ever see Monty Python series , it was a british series there was a character called Tim with scottish who was a magician , wizard they call him Tim the enchanter – Synxmax Jun 15 '11 at 07:24
  • @Michael: Neil Hodgson confirmed your guess, so you can post it as answer with a reference to the recent thread in the SciTE interest mailing list... – PhiLho Jun 16 '11 at 08:45
  • @PhiLho I'm not seeing a relevant thread on the [Scite interest group](http://groups.google.com/group/scite-interest/topics) and searching it for whinge or timmy returns no matches. Is there another mailing list that I'm missing? – Michael J. Barber Jun 16 '11 at 09:25
  • @Michael: sorry, the person posted to scintilla-interest even though it was about SciTE. Correct link is http://groups.google.com/group/scintilla-interest/browse_thread/thread/1ee6eea2d332d0ae – PhiLho Jun 16 '11 at 13:53
  • That person was me - I posted to Scintilla since the option exists there, and other editors based on it also have "tab timmy" options. – AShelly Jun 16 '11 at 17:00

2 Answers2

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According to the definitive source: Neil Hodgson, lead developer of Scintilla:

I shouldn't have named a feature after a real person.

The standard Python module for checking indentation is 'lib/tabnanny.py' which was implemented by Tim Peters.

AShelly
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It is a reference to Tim Peters, major Python contributor and author of the original tabnanny (amongst many other things!). Confirmed by Neil Hodgson on the scintilla-interest mailing list.

Michael J. Barber
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