- only press a single key instead of tapping 2 or 4 times.
- alter their width within your IDE to suit your preferences.
- they are "designed" to intent a piece of text with unlike spaces which are "designed" to break words.
But use whatever you like as long as it's consistent :)
I use spaces and I still only hit a single key.
Spaces look the same in whatever application you might be using to view a source file, be it any number of random command line tools, or fully fledged IDEs.
Tabs aren't "designed" for indenting text: they're a hangover from typewriters, where they were literally metal tabs used for creating tables. Tabs don't carry semantics - that's the job of the language's syntax. Tabs as a concept should be confined to history IMHO, especially their implementation in modern word processors, where they just give you ad-hoc semantic-less tables.
The tab key on the otherhand is great for indenting - in most sensible editors it will insert a configurable number of spaces. Perfect.
I haven't used column alignment in at least 20 years. I don't miss it at all, and I'll never go back to aligning things.
Column alignment causes far too many problems. Once you give it up, any advantage of spaces over tabs disappears. Code written without alignment reads the same whatever you use for indentation, and it is even perfectly readable in a proportional font!
I've written a few comments on HN about the problems with column alignment and the advantages of an alignment-free style. Here are a couple of previous discussions with specific examples:
> tabs are bad, because if you let people choose their own tab widths then it becomes impossible to align anything anymore.
In what world is that true. If you indent your code with tabs, and I indent your code with tabs and I show my tabs as 4 chars wide and you show yours and 8 EVERYTHING IS STILL ALIGNED. It's just greater or lesser levels of indentation. You only have problems when you MIX tabs and spaces. Be consistent in your use and you won't have problems.
> It makes it impossible to align anything which is != a tab width.
Yes. So? Don't mix tabs and spaces.
> Tabs aren't "designed" for indenting text: they're a hangover from typewriters, where they were literally metal tabs used for creating tables.
What is a table? It's a tool FOR ALIGNING MULTIPLE COLUMNS OF TEXT... so yes, they ARE designed for indenting text.
For a more fully thought out argument on why it's a dick move to use spaces as pretend tabs: http://weblog.masukomi.org/2010/07/26/why-you-should-never-i...
- Every single text editor that's come after notepad.exe has had automatic tab/space conversion. Pressing tab inserts N spaces, pressing backspace un-indents N spaces, etc.
- In some languages, this is not a feature. 2-character tabs, using two tabs to indent for alignment:
var myVar = 1,
otherVar = 2,
anotherVar = 3;
var myVar = 1;
otherVar = 2,
anotherVar = 3;
In general, you should avoid aligning unless the readability gains are significant. Aligning things means that you end up re-aligning when you add or remove longer items. This increases maintenance and pollutes diffs (which also means code reviews and git logs).
I would add "as long it's consistent with the codebase and the practices of the project"
Mixing tabs and spaces in a project is very unpleasant and changing one for the other wreaks havoc in the blame functionality
git blame -w …Consider changing your editor.
But like you said, consistency matters a lot more.
Imagine everyone setting their preferred tab width and hard wrapping.
That'll be fun for looking at VCS diffs...