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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

#421

Post by 0xffff2 »

menssen wrote: post #353
inanutshellus wrote: post #306

= 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: * Someon…

There's actually a solid argument for "tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment", which solves both for preference and vertically aligning stuff: [tab]void someNiceMethod( [tab][space*20]int arg1 [tab]) But it basically requires having some visual indicator of what is a tab, which most people don't like. (edited for line breaks)

I have visual whitespace turned on in all of my text editors. The massive amount of mixed tabs/spaces and trailing whitespace I find in virtually every document with multiple authors leads me to believe that I'm the only person on the planet who actually cares about whitespace at all.

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

#422

Post by GavinAnderegg »

vidarh wrote: post #350
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #209

I see a few arguments here which suggest people think tab-users might care less about their code and/or their fellow coder. As someone who slightly prefers tabs and abhors mixing of tabs/spaces, I find this frustrating. I generally prefer tabs because I feel that they're more egalitarian: I like 4-space indentation, but don't want to force that on everyone encountering my code. Similarly, I find 2-space indentation v…

My main reason for preferring spaces is that I have yet to work in any context where tabs occurred where it did not end up with mangled formatting sooner or later. Yes, often because it ended up being mixed with spaces, accidentally or intentionally, but nevertheless it seems to me to end with someone making a mess of it. If everyone used tabs perfectly, I'd be fine with them...

Isn't is also possible for someone to copy/paste something with tabs into space-indented code? Isn't is also possible for someone's editor to start off with tab-based indentation by default instead of space-based and mistakenly add the wrong whitespace to the project?

As I've said in other parts of this thread, I'm not that worked up about tabs vs. spaces, and I use spaces most of the time. I just don't find this argument for space superiority very convincing.

PS: If everyone showed invisible characters in their editors, I think the world would be a better place.

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

#423

Post by wtf_is_up »

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.

#NotMyIndentation #Resist

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

#424

Post by SamBam »

jinglebells wrote: post #201
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.…

> 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. This is exactly why I use tabs and the reason which appears to never get cited in the holy wars. People who use spaces want to line up their '=' signs, that's fine, but I don't believe it's my position to enforce the amount of whitespace another…

> This is exactly why I use tabs and the reason which appears to never get cited in the holy wars.

It's probably been mentioned 20 times in this thread alone.

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

#425

Post by IshKebab »

gcb0 wrote: post #385
haburka wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warning, the parent post is sarcastic and should be chuckled at.

your comment seems to imply that the article and all other comments are not... I'm confused now.

The article is serious. But I'm guessing there is either something subtle wrong in the analysis (they even find Go programmers who use spaces earn more, which makes no sense given that 99% of Go programmers use tabs), or it's some kind of weird selection bias, given that it the sample is self-selected.

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

#426

Post by rlpb »

bitwize wrote: post #303
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…

> 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.

You're begging the question. There's nothing wrong with the principle of having a standard format, or the currently accepted standard format.

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

#427

Post by [deleted] »

lliamander wrote: post #134
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.

It's not really prejudice if those 'tabbies' are just inferior, is it?

[deleted]

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

#428

Post by slowmovintarget »

dvdgsng wrote: post #394
tbabb wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using tabs has the opposite of your intended effect: If there is any text which is vertically aligned beyond the first indent, then this alignment will break for anyone who doesn't have your tab width preference. They're then forced to change their editor settings to view your file in a non-broken way. I get way more pissed about someone else "forcing their preferences on me" when this happens than when I run into a…

Indent with tabs. Align with spaces.

Indent with the tab key, let the editor replace it with spaces.

Soft tabs FTW.

(F#, where indentation matters, and Clojure using Parinfer where indentation matters to get the form placement correct both make tab characters horrible to use.)

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

#429

Post by tdeck »

tbabb wrote: post #314
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #209

I see a few arguments here which suggest people think tab-users might care less about their code and/or their fellow coder. As someone who slightly prefers tabs and abhors mixing of tabs/spaces, I find this frustrating. I generally prefer tabs because I feel that they're more egalitarian: I like 4-space indentation, but don't want to force that on everyone encountering my code. Similarly, I find 2-space indentation v…

Using tabs has the opposite of your intended effect: If there is any text which is vertically aligned beyond the first indent, then this alignment will break for anyone who doesn't have your tab width preference. They're then forced to change their editor settings to view your file in a non-broken way. I get way more pissed about someone else "forcing their preferences on me" when this happens than when I run into a…

I always see this brought and wonder, what are people vertically alogning, and why? I generally see vertical alignment as an anti-pattern that makes it harder to change code.

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

#430

Post by [deleted] »

ptero wrote: post #272
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.

Oh, no! A tab must equate to four spaces (not two, three or eight, only four). To achieve equality you should propose splitting a tab into four tabparts and equating each tabpart with a space. That's true égalité

[deleted]
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