Use spaces instead of tabs
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In the Coder Interview with Chris Sells[^], he writes: #2. Use spaces instead of tabs. Rule #2 is just good sense. Really? I use tabs, I love tabs, I think spaces are ridiculous. Why are spaces "just good sense?" Makes no sense to me! Why do tabs make sense to me? Well, they are less keystrokes when I'm indenting a line of code. I can easily "Ctrl-TAB" a few times to get everything flush against the left margin when copying code for an article or a document. The cursor skips all the whitespace for each tab. It would be annoying as hell to use spaces! Oh, and the tab key is a heck of a lot quieter on the keyboard then the spacebar! [edit]I'm obviously asking an obsolete question. CP Insider: Tabs vs. Spaces[^] [/edit] Marc
My Blog
The Relationship Oriented Programming IDE
Melody's Amazon Herb SiteI use spaces, tools like Visual studio will automatically use spaces if you press the tab key (if you configure it) so TAB and SHIFT-TAB work fine. Plus if you say "indent by 4 spaces" then it looks the same in everyone's editor whereas tabs can look different and send the formatting crazy. That's my preference anyway and its the preference we enforce on the project I'm working on in the style guidelines. Studio 2010 even has a nice plugin which will ask to "untabify" a document if you open one up and it detects tabs instead of spaces (actually it will do the reverse as well, if that's your preference)
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Tabs are great for offsetting text quickly. I usually set my environment, if I can, to tabs of four spaces and to fill out tabs with spaces on a save. Why don't I keep the tabs? Because once I insert the text where it belongs, I don't need the tabs, and the next guy to edit might have tabs set to eight columns, thus ruining my beautiful code layout.
cpkilekofp wrote:
and the next guy to edit might have tabs set to eight columns, thus ruining my beautiful code layout
Exactly. Things can degenerate into a complete mess.
Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk
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In the Coder Interview with Chris Sells[^], he writes: #2. Use spaces instead of tabs. Rule #2 is just good sense. Really? I use tabs, I love tabs, I think spaces are ridiculous. Why are spaces "just good sense?" Makes no sense to me! Why do tabs make sense to me? Well, they are less keystrokes when I'm indenting a line of code. I can easily "Ctrl-TAB" a few times to get everything flush against the left margin when copying code for an article or a document. The cursor skips all the whitespace for each tab. It would be annoying as hell to use spaces! Oh, and the tab key is a heck of a lot quieter on the keyboard then the spacebar! [edit]I'm obviously asking an obsolete question. CP Insider: Tabs vs. Spaces[^] [/edit] Marc
My Blog
The Relationship Oriented Programming IDE
Melody's Amazon Herb SiteMarc Clifton wrote:
Rule #2 is just good sense.
That's one of the things I replied on his article that I didn't agree with. It's a biased assumption. I myself have always used spaces until recently. I've been converted to the tabs religion and I am loving it.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson "Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction." ― Francis Picabia
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I don't mind tabs for indenting code, but tabs on the "interior" of a line of code wreak havoc. I wish code editors would allow for indenting with tabs with the tab key and insert spaces with the tab key on the "interior" of lines. For that reason I always stick with "insert spaces with the tab key"
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I don't mind tabs for indenting code, but tabs on the "interior" of a line of code wreak havoc.
Agreed. But you can still insert spaces with the space bars (after the tab indentation) when you're trying to align multi-line statements.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson "Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction." ― Francis Picabia
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Spaces don't work for that anyway if you don't use a fixed pitch font. A line like that should start 'tab space space space space', anyway, for me – the real indentation level of the second part of the condition is the same as the start of the condition and the tabs (for code rolling up etc) should reflect that.
If you use Eclipse, the editor has a nice mixture mode that does this all for you. Tabs for indent, then spaces for alignment. Gives you the best of both worlds. Users can set Tab to whatever they prefer, and the code still looks right.
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Tabs are great for offsetting text quickly. I usually set my environment, if I can, to tabs of four spaces and to fill out tabs with spaces on a save. Why don't I keep the tabs? Because once I insert the text where it belongs, I don't need the tabs, and the next guy to edit might have tabs set to eight columns, thus ruining my beautiful code layout.
Use a code style that doesn't depend on tab size for alignment. Instead of lining up your second line of function parameters with the first line, put all the parameters on separate lines and indent each line. Etc. Then it doesn't break your layout when the tab size changes. Plus, it doesn't make your code lean way over to the right side when you use an especially long function name. And, it makes it possible to use a regular font instead of monospace. Weird, I know.
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I used to think tabs were great, but that was before text editors got a clue. Now [Home] skips the whitespace and arrow keys navigate to sensible places. Tabs still aren't bad when used for indenting, but they (perhaps ironically) suck for aligning. For example in
if (something\_longer\_than\_this && something\_else\_long)If tabs are used it risks becoming
if (something_longer_than_this &&
something_else_long)or
if (something\_longer\_than\_this && something\_else\_long)Depending on someones settings. When tabs and spaces are mixed, things tend to go wrong, possibly because it's hard to tell the difference between a tab and a bunch of spaces especially when they've become mixed arbitrarily. Through copy/paste and incremental editing, whitespaces slowly become tab/space mixes that only accidentally have the right size for whatever edited it last. If everything is a space but the editor treats whitespace properly instead of "just an other character" IMO its disadvantages mostly disappear, but the advantages remain. The same could afaik not be done for tabs.
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In the Coder Interview with Chris Sells[^], he writes: #2. Use spaces instead of tabs. Rule #2 is just good sense. Really? I use tabs, I love tabs, I think spaces are ridiculous. Why are spaces "just good sense?" Makes no sense to me! Why do tabs make sense to me? Well, they are less keystrokes when I'm indenting a line of code. I can easily "Ctrl-TAB" a few times to get everything flush against the left margin when copying code for an article or a document. The cursor skips all the whitespace for each tab. It would be annoying as hell to use spaces! Oh, and the tab key is a heck of a lot quieter on the keyboard then the spacebar! [edit]I'm obviously asking an obsolete question. CP Insider: Tabs vs. Spaces[^] [/edit] Marc
My Blog
The Relationship Oriented Programming IDE
Melody's Amazon Herb SiteWhen I code for the web, sometimes with tabs, when you 'view source' it just isn't pretty - especially if someone else coded it. It might look perfectly fine in my editor but put it on the web and it's all over the place. That's why I like to use spaces.
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In the Coder Interview with Chris Sells[^], he writes: #2. Use spaces instead of tabs. Rule #2 is just good sense. Really? I use tabs, I love tabs, I think spaces are ridiculous. Why are spaces "just good sense?" Makes no sense to me! Why do tabs make sense to me? Well, they are less keystrokes when I'm indenting a line of code. I can easily "Ctrl-TAB" a few times to get everything flush against the left margin when copying code for an article or a document. The cursor skips all the whitespace for each tab. It would be annoying as hell to use spaces! Oh, and the tab key is a heck of a lot quieter on the keyboard then the spacebar! [edit]I'm obviously asking an obsolete question. CP Insider: Tabs vs. Spaces[^] [/edit] Marc
My Blog
The Relationship Oriented Programming IDE
Melody's Amazon Herb SiteI absolutely agree. Tabs line up for everyone the way they like it, and however their VS is set up - with 3 spaces, 4 spaces, n spaces, whatever. Once we've debated this one to death, maybe next we can settle once and for all where open and close braces should go and how to properly indent them. :laugh:
public void TheRightWay() {
// yer awesum codez here
}public void TheWrongWay()
{
// yer bad wtf codez here
}If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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Not very common, admittedly. I don't understand why. I suppose some people don't like the waste of vertical space.