Keep tabs as tabs or tabs as spaces
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
If I prefer a layout with, say, 4 spaces of indent and a co-worker prefers just 2, using spaces means one of us has to suffer. Using Tabs means we can adjust our tabs and see the layout we like (depending on the editor, for sure). VS2010 Pro Power Tools has an option to tell you when you have mixed spaces and tabs, and fix it (into tabs or spaces) for you. So set it up how you want to in VS and let the tools do their job. Of course, if you're not using VS2010 you may have to look at other options - but I believe that the tools we use should provide what we want, and not require us to modify our behavior to suit them.
___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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I used to think like you, but then I had to deal with a file comparison tool that used 8 spaces for tabs and couldn't be changed. Replace tabs with spaces. ALWAYS! 4 backspaces doesn't take that long. Modern IDEs should reduce that to 1 keystroke anyway. I've found I have much less problems across editors and merge utilites and diff programs when I use spaces.
Pete
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The Minion and I agreed to a compromise. He prefers spaces, and a tab width of 3. I prefer tabs, and a width of 4. We compromised on spaces and a tab width of 4. Of course, if he doesn't stop using Hungarian notation (in C# no less), they'll find his body floating face down in a culvert somewhere...
Software Zen:
delete this;Wouldn't it been fairer to use tabs, then you could set the tab to be 3 or 4 or whatever number of spaces wide you like!
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
With my favorite code editors, the convention is: If I select multiple lines and hit tab, it indents it all. If I select multiple lines and hit space, it replaces it all with a single space. 'Nuff said. IMHO this point alone makes tabs the natural choice to mass format lines of code. Sure some editors allow you to get around this by having options to convert the tabs into spaces (so you can still tab multiple lines, the editor just immediately converts them to whitespace). But not all editors have this, which means you may end up changing the format of your code depending on which editor you have open (e.g. VS2010 with the tab-to-space conversion enabled versus SQL studio which doesn't have the option AFAIK).
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Wouldn't it been fairer to use tabs, then you could set the tab to be 3 or 4 or whatever number of spaces wide you like!
No, because Visual Studio (at least as recently as VS2008), still does not handle tabs correctly, especially when block indenting a selection.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
At our company and part of our coding standard, no tabs aloud and there is a good reason for it too. Opening files that uses tabs in different editors can create a mess of things. We use 2 space intentation only which limit the backspace to only 2 presses. And then there is always which eliminates the 2 backspaces. Use tab as long as your editor automatically converts tabs to spaces I'll recommend.
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." << please vote!! >>
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Tabs for indenting, spaces everywhere else! :thumbsup:
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
We recently went through a rewrite of our software standards and the company now mandates spaces over tabs. The reason for this is that every coder has their preferences, tabs, spaces, tabs whatever. We use several different IDEs and compilers with their respective editors for each microprocessor platform we use but we have a common algorithm that we use for our products. What looks aesthetically nice in one editor looks like crap in another. This can make it difficult when the spacing is different or a particular editor does not have the ignore whitespace function when comparing code. Then there’s the version control software and viewers, and so on. Most of the editors allow you to choose between spaces or tabs when using the tab key but will not convert the tabs to spaces when viewing code. So for me it’s not a matter of preference, I have to use spaces, but I have to admit, it is nice when the code indentation matches the rest of the code regardless of what I am using to view the code. And makes the compares easier to go though during V&V :zzz: .
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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It is the efficient vs. the lazy in this argument. Most people are too lazy to change the flow. VS defaults to spaces so why change it. Watch the people who are in favor of coding with spaces actually code. Watch how slow they (usually) work. I am a tab man. All of my code is used only on Windows. I don't have to deal with using Unix and Windows for the same code base and I can type. Yes it matters. There is nothing worse than having to break away from the keyboard to use the mouse.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. I also do Android Programming as I find it a refreshing break from the MS. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
VS defaults to spaces so why change it.
Really? I've always been under the impression that the default in VS is tabs, at least I've always had to go into the options to check the 'replace tabd with spaces' option.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
It is the efficient vs. the lazy in this argument. Most people are too lazy to change the flow
I think my previous comment debunks this idea.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Watch the people who are in favor of coding with spaces actually code. Watch how slow they (usually) work
how do you think replacing tabs with spaces actually slows down coding? I just don't get this one.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Yes it matters. There is nothing worse than having to break away from the keyboard to use the mouse.
Again, why would using spaces require us to resort to the mouse more often? The Ctrl key is pretty damn handy for navigating through code.
Pete
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With my favorite code editors, the convention is: If I select multiple lines and hit tab, it indents it all. If I select multiple lines and hit space, it replaces it all with a single space. 'Nuff said. IMHO this point alone makes tabs the natural choice to mass format lines of code. Sure some editors allow you to get around this by having options to convert the tabs into spaces (so you can still tab multiple lines, the editor just immediately converts them to whitespace). But not all editors have this, which means you may end up changing the format of your code depending on which editor you have open (e.g. VS2010 with the tab-to-space conversion enabled versus SQL studio which doesn't have the option AFAIK).
Ben Barreth wrote:
If I select multiple lines and hit tab, it indents it all.
And with 'replace tabs with spaces' this will also work and replace all tabs with spaces, I use it regulary to 'correct' tabs to spaces in editors where I don't trust the 'nicify code' function.
Pete
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
As a rule at our company we convert all tabs to spaces. This is to stay consistent throughout the code base and it also helps when it comes to merging branches in your source control system.
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Rob Philpott wrote:
Or worse yet - "does it matter?"
If you want a hard answer, the answer is that most probably it does matter. Or, more to the point: if you know for sure that every tool you use to view, edit or in other way work with your source code files uses the same tab width, and every other developer working on the same files, and any other person who for some reason works with your files, only will use tools with that same tab width, then you're safe to use and store only tabs. Unfortunately, in 99% of all cases the above conditions are not met, and so you're 'safer' to store tabs as spaces instead. Having to backspace for formatting purposes - repeatedly or not - is something you shouldn't need to do at all - either you have specific functions to increase and decrease text indention, or your editor is smart enough to interpret a backspace at the start of a the text in a line as a command to decrease the indention (I've worked with such an editor once, but unfortunately can't remember it's name). Here are some examples on how stuff can get messed up by storing tabs instead of spaces: 1. Code comments appear unaligned because of different tab settings 2. Various developers see different indentions on different lines, because the tools they use insert formatting in different ways, including, possibly, spaces for indentions 3. Viewing changes becomes confusing because tabs and spaces might be considered different by the diff tool, even though the code itself is unchanged. Also alignment issues may arise from different tab settings for the viewer 4. Edit functions that cut/copy vertically blocks of text (only rectangular areas rather than whole lines) might not work properly when using tabs (ok, not many editors support that, and there is a very limited use for that functionality, but still...) Fortunately, most tools like editors and viewers can be set to use a distinct tab width, so if you feel more comfortable storing tabs, then just make sure that everyone does this and configures all their tools to use the right tab width. Then you're good to go. :) Unfortunately there's always someone who stores tabs as spaces ... ;P Personally, I do always store spaces, because this is the only way to make sure that everyone will see the indentations exactly as I made them. :cool:
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I also agree. Referring to rule #9 of Elements of C# Style: Do not use "hard" tabs. I guess it's a rule for other languages as well..
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Rob Philpott wrote:
Or worse yet - "does it matter?"
If you want a hard answer, the answer is that most probably it does matter. Or, more to the point: if you know for sure that every tool you use to view, edit or in other way work with your source code files uses the same tab width, and every other developer working on the same files, and any other person who for some reason works with your files, only will use tools with that same tab width, then you're safe to use and store only tabs. Unfortunately, in 99% of all cases the above conditions are not met, and so you're 'safer' to store tabs as spaces instead. Having to backspace for formatting purposes - repeatedly or not - is something you shouldn't need to do at all - either you have specific functions to increase and decrease text indention, or your editor is smart enough to interpret a backspace at the start of a the text in a line as a command to decrease the indention (I've worked with such an editor once, but unfortunately can't remember it's name). Here are some examples on how stuff can get messed up by storing tabs instead of spaces: 1. Code comments appear unaligned because of different tab settings 2. Various developers see different indentions on different lines, because the tools they use insert formatting in different ways, including, possibly, spaces for indentions 3. Viewing changes becomes confusing because tabs and spaces might be considered different by the diff tool, even though the code itself is unchanged. Also alignment issues may arise from different tab settings for the viewer 4. Edit functions that cut/copy vertically blocks of text (only rectangular areas rather than whole lines) might not work properly when using tabs (ok, not many editors support that, and there is a very limited use for that functionality, but still...) Fortunately, most tools like editors and viewers can be set to use a distinct tab width, so if you feel more comfortable storing tabs, then just make sure that everyone does this and configures all their tools to use the right tab width. Then you're good to go. :) Unfortunately there's always someone who stores tabs as spaces ... ;P Personally, I do always store spaces, because this is the only way to make sure that everyone will see the indentations exactly as I made them. :cool:
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Yep, tabs are all well and good*, but too varied in size. I often open up a source in Notepad to check something and tabs send the text waaay out there to the right at times. *Any R. Stevie Moore fans here? :-D
This is exactly what I have been thinking of. Just didn't bother to mention it, because it reminds me of at least three occasions I've seen a tool like Notepad++ being suggested as a 'must-have' replacement for this hopelessly outdated piece of nostalgic-ware. ;)
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No, because Visual Studio (at least as recently as VS2008), still does not handle tabs correctly, especially when block indenting a selection.
Software Zen:
delete this;Visual Studio? Use Notepad (for Windows), vi (for Unix / Linux), ISPF or TSO EDIT (for MVS), or EDIT or EDLIN or COPY CON: for MS-DOS. I always used to use 3 spaces with punched card and paper tape. I now use Tabs at the start of lines, after the command keyword and before '='; and single space everywhere else. It maximises visual layout whilst minimising storage / network bandwidth.
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Visual Studio? Use Notepad (for Windows), vi (for Unix / Linux), ISPF or TSO EDIT (for MVS), or EDIT or EDLIN or COPY CON: for MS-DOS. I always used to use 3 spaces with punched card and paper tape. I now use Tabs at the start of lines, after the command keyword and before '='; and single space everywhere else. It maximises visual layout whilst minimising storage / network bandwidth.
:^)
Software Zen:
delete this; -
You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Tabs or spaces doesn't matter, as long as A) everybody agrees how many spaces a tab is equivanat to, and B) preferably everybody uses spaces or everybody uses tabs, not a mixture of some using one and others using another. Some external tools have assumptions built in too. The only violation to this should always be old code. Whatever it was done as, do any new changes in the same indentation style, even if it isn't your religion. Where I work, we do none of the above and our code's a total mess. Every developer has their religion and nobody's got the authority to dicipline the others, so nobody can decree a standard. Crtl-K crtl-F is my friend :)
patbob
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You know what I mean - you can have it so that a tab is a tab, and backspace removes it - or you can have it as usually 4 spaces so one tab takes four backspace hits to remove it. I like the first way and despise the second (it offends my need for symmetry), but seem to be alone in this in my current place of work. Or worse yet - "does it matter?" Please reassure me I'm in the right really....
Regards, Rob Philpott.
I always use tabs with a tab width of 4. What I would be interested in knowing is, why is there even an option to use spaces instead of the tab character? Doesn't tab deserve the right to exist by itself? Who introduced this idea of converting all your tabs into spaces and why?