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Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

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Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#301

Post by rcthompson »

andrewla wrote: post #188

The most confusing thing about this result is that go shows a high level of space-preferential salary difference. Go programmers who use spaces make ~20k more (at the median) than developers who don't. Only, in Go, you don't have a choice -- gofmt enforces tabs only (with spaces for alignment). So something seems odd there.

I'm pretty sure the spaces-vs-tabs question was not language-specific, which means that the interpretation was more like "in languages that do not enforce a specific style, which do you prefer, tabs or spaces".

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#302

Post by watwut »

jordanlev wrote: post #277
rlpb wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when another developer looks at the code, their IDE will render the tabs as whatever its set up for, 2 spaces, 4 spaces, etc. This is an argument I hear often from tab proponents. What it misses out is the downside: my IDE has a certain arrangement on my screen, and I'll either have to invoke horizontal scrolling or I'll have a bunch of wasted space if you are using different size tabs from me. This is far from fle…

> if you are using different size tabs from me. But the point of tabs is that you tell your editor how many spaces wide you want them to be, so unless I'm misunderstanding you, this is not an issue. As for lining things up, tabs are used for the indentation level of the current line, but if you need to further nudge things within that line then you'd of course use spaces (after the initial tab indent).

Someone who uses 8 spaces for tab will do less nesting them someone who users 2. Thay is how I read the above comment.

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#303

Post by bitwize »

rlpb wrote: post #207
redm wrote: post #123

The reason I use tabs is pretty simple. It's faster to move around only using the keyboard. It's also faster if I'm changing code that requires reformatting. Finally, when another developer looks at the code, their IDE will render the tabs as whatever its set up for, 2 spaces, 4 spaces, etc. In other words, it adds flexibility. Brace yourself: I use two spaces after the end of sentences too. [1] I am quite the rebel.…

> when another developer looks at the code, their IDE will render the tabs as whatever its set up for, 2 spaces, 4 spaces, etc. This is an argument I hear often from tab proponents. What it misses out is the downside: my IDE has a certain arrangement on my screen, and I'll either have to invoke horizontal scrolling or I'll have a bunch of wasted space if you are using different size tabs from me. This is far from fle…

> I've come to the conclusion that the only sensible tab width is 8, since that works everywhere including in tools where it isn't practical to set (eg. less). Further, the only sensible screen width is 80 characters, since that also works everywhere.

Ah, the old argumentum ad ubiquitam, which has saddled us with the x86 ISA, Unix kernels, and other brokenness we can never shake.

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#304

Post by rcthompson »

inanutshellus wrote: post #287

If you use tabs, you work for a small team (or by yourself),. If you use spaces, it's because you're in a "big enough to stop trusting everyone" environment. Case closed! :)

This could be checked if the survey included questions about the number of people in your office/company.

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#305

Post by pseudalopex »

coldpie wrote: post #236
Gracana wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you try this, it fails If it fails, then you have not understood and you are not using your tools correctly. If your alignment depends on tab width, then you are not using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment, you are using tabs for indentation and alignment and spaces for alignment, which of course breaks when you change your tab width.

Ah, I see what you mean. I've never seen an editor work this way, normally they just swap spaces with tabs, leaving however many spaces can't be swapped. Which is probably why I've never seen tabbed code in the real world that doesn't look like utter garbage.

This was definitely a problem back in the day, but I think most popular editors do the right thing now. And like you say, alignment is usually a waste of time anyways.

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#306

Post by inanutshellus »

= Why Grown-Ups Don't Use Tabs =

* Joe likes 4-space tabs, I like 2-space tabs, and Jane is old-school with 8-space tabs.

* All goes well until someone aligns something visually, like so:

    void someNiceMethod(
[tab][tab][tab][tab][space][space]int myParam...);

* Now it aligns perfectly on my machine, looks mostly ok on Joe's machine, and is ON MARS on Jane's machine.

Thus one-or-more of three futures happens:

* Someone implements a code re-formatter into version control

* Someone re-aligns the code, starting the process over again.

* Someone calls a meeting and demands we all switch to spaces

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#307

Post by dTal »

rlpb wrote: post #207
redm wrote: post #123

The reason I use tabs is pretty simple. It's faster to move around only using the keyboard. It's also faster if I'm changing code that requires reformatting. Finally, when another developer looks at the code, their IDE will render the tabs as whatever its set up for, 2 spaces, 4 spaces, etc. In other words, it adds flexibility. Brace yourself: I use two spaces after the end of sentences too. [1] I am quite the rebel.…

> when another developer looks at the code, their IDE will render the tabs as whatever its set up for, 2 spaces, 4 spaces, etc. This is an argument I hear often from tab proponents. What it misses out is the downside: my IDE has a certain arrangement on my screen, and I'll either have to invoke horizontal scrolling or I'll have a bunch of wasted space if you are using different size tabs from me. This is far from fle…

> I'll either have to invoke horizontal scrolling or I'll have a bunch of wasted space if you are using different size tabs from me.

So change your tab size? That's true if you have a different sized monitor, no matter what the tab size. That's... kind of the point of using tabs.

>I've come to the conclusion that the only sensible tab width is 8, since that works everywhere including in tools where it isn't practical to set (eg. less).

Pass -x[size] to less or put it in the LESS environment variable to make it default. You can also type it in while less is running.

Also, what do you mean "works"? The world doesn't explode if you view a file with a different tab size than it was created with. Again, kind of the point...

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#308

Post by freehunter »

_jal wrote: post #291
freehunter wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tab is usually three spaces, right? So if I hit the tab key, I'm getting three button presses for the price of one. So extrapolating from that, if I hit tab I can get my work done three times faster and get out of the office quicker. If I'm using space, it takes me three times longer, which makes the boss think I'm working three times harder and I get a pay raise. I'm always at the office before she is (to fill in al…

A quality analysis, but you're neglecting the wear on your space key. Managers tend to look askance at wasting capex, so I'd recommend taking that in to account.

With the beauty of BYOD, they don't have to worry about it anymore! It's the employee's own keyboard!

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#309

Post by mi100hael »

zensavona wrote: post #252
beaconstudios wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe that in 2017 I'm reading comments containing blatant spacial prejudice on Hacker News of all places.

Hacker News should be a Safe Space.

Safe spaces are exclusionary towards tabs. Ban safe spaces! We need safe tabs!

Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

#310

Post by dmix »

jdc0589 wrote: post #221
austenallred wrote: post #94

Almost certainly a result of the spaces cabal and the (often unspoken of) prejudice against tab users. Don't think you make hiring decisions based on tabs vs spaces? Well you're part of the problem, then. I'm building an app to help you easily email your congressperson and ask them to create legislation requiring space/tab equality. This has to stop. Please consider donating to my Patreon.

> Don't think you make hiring decisions based on tabs vs spaces? I actually ask candidates "spaces or tabs?" in every single interview. I don't really care what the response is in regard to the holy war, and it doesn't mean anything on its own, but having SOME thought out response can be a GREAT indicator of how well versed someone is in general. e.g. I'm going to think way more highly of someone that says "tabs, bec…

Does spending time considering the implications of spaces vs tabs really indicate competence? To me being over-obsessed with minor details might be either negative or at most neutral value. There are thousands of interesting programming subjects to initiate a conversation to evaluate competency.

At most it's a matter of what tools you use as well as accepted standards in the individual programming language's community.

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