god... why is the stupid "tAbS oR sPaCeS?" still around, it's like some stupid ass HR person got it long ago and it's never gone away. nobody has used tabs to write or format code since like the 1950s when there were mechanical fucking typewriters! and if you use them today in your editor, you're WRONG

I will die on this hill.

Yeah, I use spaces because in reality, tabs will always fuck up. I have yet to see a whole code base where you can actually set the tab width to different widths (which is the point of tab) and it doesn't fuck up. Hence, I set my editor to convert tabs into four spaces when using the tab key.

Also, devs who use spaces are paid better, statistically.

That is one of the most stupid debates about sw dev.

'make fmt'

Done, now shut up

Exactly this.

I use tabs when I work with python from a terminal editor. :(

I must be from the 1950

This stupid debate is still around in 2021 because you just called everyone who does it "wrong" :^) which is retarded and go fuck yourself. That's all

The ideal would be to indent blocks with tabs since the depth of a block can be subjective and use spaces for vertical alignment, but it doesn't have widespread IDE support so the second best option is spaces everywhere.

I don’t understand why tabbing is bad. I mean if you want to use space that’s ok I won’t judge bc if your code is good that’s what counts the most. But I use tabs for quick indentation without having to pound the space bar

This "rant" is exactly why the debate is still around. Not everyone follows the same god as you. I want to say the things that Richard hendricks says in Silicon Valley. But you can go see that yourself.

@TeachMeCode Are you using MS Notepad? Because that's the only editor I know that isn't capable of inserting a configurable number of spaces when you press the tab key.

@TeachMeCode When people say they prefer spaces they always mean tabs being replaced with spaces by the editor. Nobody actually indents with the spacebar. The debate is on whether it makes sense to make indentation depth individually configurable for each dev, which brings a world of pain when you also use tab characters to vertically align content within rows.

@homo-lorens oh ok thanks! No I don’t use notepad, lol I used visual studio and eclipse professionally. For personal things i like AWS cloud 9 and codesandbox bc my laptop is slowing down pretty badly

The debate still exists all the while people care, which you clearly still do.

I really couldn't give a crap, personally, I just use whatever the coding style is for the project I'm using. My IDE sorts it out for me based on the style rules I set.

There's way more important things to care about these days.

It still exists because various languages(+ their default tools) enforce different (default) coding standards.
A classic enterprise SWE example:
.NET / VS: tabs and have braces in their line.
JS / VSC: spaces and have braces in the same line as connected statements.