Ask HN: Tabs or Spaces?

Spaces.

The variability in the ways tabs are displayed, which you can not control, make tabs a non-starter.

Spaces always look like spaces. So when you use them, your text looks the same wherever it is displayed, and that requires no additional work.

The one caveat here (if you don't already know) is that the `make` utility has never been updated to allow spaces, even to this day. So, you must use hard tabs in Makefiles.

Also worth knowing is that Python's official style guide, PEP-8, insists on spaces (specifically, 4 spaces), and the officially-provided formatting tool for Go uses tabs (a decision that I was most displeased with). It's physically possible to go against these recommendations, but you're not likely to find any community cooperation for that decision if you're working in those two languages.

Tabs. There's a reason we put tab key on every keyboard out there, it is built specifically for alignment

  The word tab derives from the word tabulate, which means "to arrange data in a tabular, or table, form." When a person wanted to type a table (of numbers or text) on a typewriter, there was a lot of time-consuming and repetitive use of the space bar and backspace key. — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_key

Tabs.

I used to prefer spaces until I came across an argument which convinced me to convert:

Indentation can be something very subjective, some prefer two spaces, others four and yet again others maybe eight. With spaces everyone is forced to use one particular style. With tabs everybody can configure it exactly the way they want and it will be displayed in one unified style.

Tabs. Spaces for indentation are an heresy.

To go further, always use a standard formatting tool (gofmt, clang-format...) before committing code.

Tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment.

Spaces of course.

Tabs can be messy across version control and multiple users with differing OS / editor.

Visual Studio automatically converts tabs to spaces (default setting; can be changed). Personal preference; 2 indent (spaces) instead of full 4.

Mixing tabs and spaces is the worst. I'm surprised none of the commenters has mentioned line continuations, which tabs suck at. Since I can't mix and match I prefer spaces.

I prefer tabs because it doesn't force all devs to have the same level of indentation.

Somebody watched Silicon Valley last night :)

And I go with whatever the current file is. If I didn't make the file I respect the style of whoever did.

For my own files I prefer spaces.

The best answer is to use a tool that saves in the format that the file was in originally. I think VSCode and some others do that. If the file only has 2-space indentation then TAB becomes 2-spaces. etc...

That said, assuming a greenfield the best case has to be to use tabs. This way if somebody has a preference to small indents then they can configure the TAB to render as 2-spaces - it becomes a render issue.

So, use a modern tool and it's a moot point.

P.S. not sure why Silicon Valley's Richard started talking about 8 space tabs. That would be crazy. The only time I've seen that is in a proportional font in a word processor.

Here is the compromise: one tab in between two spaces.

Spaces. A single character shouldn't expand to look like multiple characters.

Tabs. I like controlling the level of indentation I see.

tabs, don't you watch sillicon valley?

I wish the answer was elastic-tabstops http://nickgravgaard.com/elastic-tabstops/

But compatibility trumps awesomeness, so spaces.

Since my first contact with Python: spaces!

Tabs, but this shouldn't be an issue for programmers using a real editor, something more sophisticated then Notepad. Vim can convert between tabs and spaces easily, and almost every modern editor I've used can do the same.

Using spaces to force everyone to your preferred indentation is like forcing the font size. I can't read code indented two spaces, but if we use tabs I can set the indent to 4 spaces widths and someone with younger eyes can use 2.

Most importantly, whatever the language or codebase you are working in/on mandates.

I write a lot of C, and given the choice, I tend to prefer tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment. I use a tab-width of 8, so the code will look fine for anyone using a lower tab-width.

Converting from tabs to spaces is a simple search-and-replace, whereas the other way is more work (there was an article here recently about algorithms to guess indentation width).

For a very long time, I thought tabs were the way to go. It provided the most compatible coding style between my languages (Lua, C, Assembly, etc.) The only sticking point was JavaScript, which used spaces. But now that I develop across devices, I'd have to say spaces simply because of encoding issues re: Unicode. Sure, you could ensure your encoding type, but that's an extra step you shouldn't have to do.

Spaces over Tabs, Vim over Emacs! #TeamNoSexForRichard

Ideally tabs. That's what they're for. But at some point someone on your team who doesn't understand the difference is gonna start making changes and screw it all up. Because of this, I use spaces. That way it always looks the way I intend it to look no matter how poorly the viewer's text editor is configured.

Whatever the file already has.

If it's empty, spaces.

Tabs all the way man it so much easier for code control.

i write pre-minified js, all in one line.

Many people use tabs in the beginning of the line, and spaces for anything after any visible character in the line.

If people choose a different way, is because they have a reason, or they don't care.

If you're not sure, use whatever the file already uses, or the way I described above, or whatever makes you feel fuzzy inside. In that order!

Yes. Just not both.

Spaces! https://github.com/airbnb/javascript#whitespace--spaces

It doesn't matter. Just choose tabs or spaces per project and be consistent.

If you join a project already using tabs / spaces and you wanna switch, don't bother doing that.

Spaces.

spaces, tabs are nonsense

Spaces for indentation, spaces for alignment...

...but using the tab key /glares at Silicon Valley/

spaces ( I know I am a monster, stop staring at me ! )

Tabs. Spaces are how you end up with one class where one method is 2 space indent and another is 4 and another is 12 because your team all has different preferences (and two of them are insane.)

Tabs means everyone can use whatever preference they want and not be bothered by anyone else's preference.

I don't care and I only want to work with engineers who also don't care and would rather spend their brainpower on actual problems, not bikeshedding.

(setq indent-tabs-mode nil)

Neither,

Go or Python, so I don't spend time on this trivial decision anymore.