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Tabs versus spaces: Spaces won[^] (source: Los Techies)
Why? Because since at least Visual Studio 2005, the default has been spaces.
"Do you like tabs in Visual Studio? I do too! But I gave up the tabs versus spaces argument, and so should you."
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I used to work at a company that had its own interpreted language and it was written such that it choked on the tab character so all of our editors had to be set to use spaces so that we wouldn't accidently use tabs in our own scripts.
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. -- Steve Landesberg
I am not a chatbot.
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Nonsense: spaces have not won: have never used spaces (in over 20 years) and none of the teams I've worked for or that work for me have used spaces (they might have wanted to but they didn't).
Spaces are the work of the de vil.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
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OK, now look at your code in Notepad.
Not everyone uses an IDE.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: OK, now look at your code in Notepad.
Not everyone uses an IDE.
Are you suggesting that programmers that don't use IDEs use Notepad?
Certainly isn't the case for me. Certainly isn't the case for other developers that I know that don't use IDEs.
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That is two separate statements.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: Not everyone uses an IDE.
Amateurs.
Seriously? Creating complex, feature rich applications/web sites with notepad? Not practical. Perhaps with something like Notepad++ but Windows Notepad? No, definitely not.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
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mark merrens wrote: Amateurs.
Contrarywise; newbies use IDEs and don't realize that there are other ways.
Experienced developers know that there are several ways to skin most cats.
mark merrens wrote: Creating complex, feature rich applications/web sites with notepad?
I didn't say that.
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We at my company often use the web editor in Umbraco to edit pages. It works best with spaces. Because of editors like this, much of the rest of our code follows that same convention so we don't have to switch things up.
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It was easy to get my teams to go to tabs. It means that indents can be whatever each developer desires, and it takes less space (although not too much different). Tabs are easy to get everyone on the team to agree on.
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I hate all the defaults of tabs space of 4 and 8... I mean 8!? Come on, you're half way across the screen.
2 is the magic number 
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The only place I worked that had an actual standard, the standard was four SPACEs, so I got used to that.
Where I am now, all the existing code uses two SPACEs, so I adapted. Now my four SPACE indents look huge. 
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I also vote for 2 spaces. Fortunately do not have to deal with people who insist on 4 or 8. I am surprised how many of the good developers I know agree with 2.
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Clifford Nelson wrote: I am surprised how many of the good developers I know agree with 2.
However presumably those "good" developers spend the vast majority of time discussing a vast array of subjects of all which have nothing to do with indent preferences.
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Actually they have no reason to worry about that since that is a personal preference. Probably the best developer on my team was adamant about using tabs instead of spaces. Then he can use whatever he wants, and does not care what other developers are using.
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So what happens whenshe edits your code, or you edit his?
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That is the reason for going with tabs. If spaces are used, then the number of spaces specified will appear for everyone no matter what the user sets his tab spacing. When the person does editing with tabs as an option, then there will be a mixture of tabs and spaces, and it will look different on applications with different settings. When a person does editing with a different tab setting with spaces, then still have the problem. With tabs set for everyone, then each person can have what they like, and it will appear correct on thier screen. Thats why there is an issue that this forum was discussing. Set Option for Text Editor for C# to "Keep Tabs" and then each developer can have whatever indent size they like, and everybody is happy.
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Clifford Nelson wrote: each developer can have whatever indent size they like
That depends on the tool. SPACEs are always consistent.
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not with a proportional font...
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My groups have had problems when spaces are selected and people have different indent settings. Then you get a real mix of indents which have to be fixed by cntl-K cntl-D. Just go with tabs/
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Tabs win where people pay attention. Very easy to convince people to go with tabs. Should be the default.
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Maybe 2 is magic, but 3 is more Freudy. Seriously, I got used to 4 which is often a default setting. But 8 looks ridiculus to me too.
Greetings - Jacek
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Gawd! All these 'should it be 2 spaces or 4' arguments can be done away with by using tabs-then you decide how wide you want a tab to be when you are editing, while your colleague can use a different value - everyone is happy!
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