From: "Ned Konz" <ned / bike-nomad.com>
>
> Why are we setting the sw in an ftplugin?

There's no good reason.  It should be removed.

> After all, it says explicitly in ftplugin/README.txt:
>
> "The default filetype plugin files contain settings that 95% of the
> users will want to use.  They do not contain personal preferences,
> like the value of 'shiftwidth'."
>
> And...
>
> How do I get my ftplugin/ruby.vim to be distributed with Vim?
> Among other things, it makes matchit work with Ruby.
>

Contact the current maintainer, I suppose.  Failing that, Bram.

If anyone wants to override the sw setting without modifying the "standard"
ruby.vim file, follow these steps:

1. Edit ~/.vim/ftplugin/ruby.vim
2. Put your preferences in there

If ~/.vim/ftplugin/ruby.vim already exists, call it "ruby_prefs.vim" or
something instead.

NB. On Windows, s/.vim/vimfiles

Regards,
Gavin