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Pretty simple: you use spaces because you're aware that there is more than one IDE/editor in this world and who knows what your code will get opened with tomorrow. This means you consider consequences beyond "but it works on my machine" so you're a better programmer. Ergo, higher salary.
1 tab will render to whatever the next programmer prefers, it's only courteous.
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I think there's probably some truth to considering existing norms and thinking ahead, but find it unlikely to be the main confounder. How do tabs fail to work in other editors/IDEs?
Tabs fail when my IDE is set to convert tabs to spaces and yours isn't.
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yeah, just because in 2017 storing source code is the most expensive thing for a company. but really, the storage is almost free nowadays...
Seems unfair to downvote you just for misunderstanding, that was sarcasm friend.
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In fact, tabs are better for compatibility: other people might like other indentation sizes. If you keep your stuff consistently with tabs, and use spaces for alignment instead of having your IDE auto-replace tabs there as well, your code will look great with whatever tab size someone chooses. And extra pro: in dumb editors, you automatically get the right thing.
unless you have anything aligned in columns then all bets are off (something which many code formatters can do automatically for you e.g. lists of bindings)
Also, most people who do have several years of experience under their belt will tell you: don't align. Mid-line alignment is a waste of a maintainer's time to have to update alignment blocks every time you add/remove variables... and statement-alignment is unreadable[1].
[1] https://github.com/pennersr/django-allauth/blob/a44134688f5b...
>Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs Sure, but how many spaces? grabs popcorn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_langua...
Remind me what Facebook and Google use :)
Am I alone in not even knowing what I use? I use the formatting standard that my IDE enforces.
Is this about whether you set your editor to convert tabs to spaces? (which is obviously tidier due to inconsistent treatment of tabs) Or do some people actually use the space bar to indent code? (which is obviously insane)
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I think there's probably some truth to considering existing norms and thinking ahead, but find it unlikely to be the main confounder. How do tabs fail to work in other editors/IDEs?
They might be configured differently, and you usually can't align stuff properly using just tabs, you have to use a space or three somewhere. Also, you never know if it's spaces, tabs or a combination of them in existing code - which you may have not written yourself. So in the long run, the indentation WILL get fucked up and you WILL miss something when fixing a bug in code that you or someone else wrote 6 months ag…
Huh? Things indented to 1 tab will align with everything else on 1 tab. Things aligned to 2 will align with everything else at 2 tabs.
>you have to use a space or three somewhere
Why? Tabs will indent with other tabs.
>you never know if it's spaces, tabs or a combination of them in existing code
Well they should never be combined for indentation. Unless you mean using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment, but this wouldn't create any issues. Using tabs for spacing is objectively poor form.
I open space- and tab-indented files in my IDE, they are all converted to tabs. It is always consistent.