( Log Out / So in the end we have to chalk up elastic tabstops as just another option, but certainly not a clear winner. In his article, David Robinson, analyses sets of data to predict whether there is a connection between salary and using spaces over tabs. Problem. However, I suspect this may be a case of P-hacking. They allow developers with different preferences in indentation size to change how the code looks without changing the code” So there! Tabs are the most common problem, some code editors will treat each tab indent as very small, where as others will treat it like a huge block. It turns out that the "tabs for everything" position actually ends up being untenable because while it works great for indentation it fails miserably for alignment; that is, things like: This looks fine if spaces are used for everything: With tabs things aren’t so nice. After my post on the 80-column limit it’s time for another coding style entry, this one on the eternal debate on spaces vs tabs. It doesn't actually matter which coding styles you pick. A while ago "elastic tabstops" came onto the scene. I replaced every 4 spaces with 1 TAB. We are about to start a new design on our product and the spaces vs. tabs discussion is back. According to one data scientist, the answer is yes. Coders who use spaces for indentation make more money than ones who use tabs, even if they have the same amount of experience: Indeed, the median developer who uses spaces had a salary of $59,140, while the median tabs developer had a salary of $43,750. ( Log Out / He finds that even when analyzing subsections of the data, spaces always seem to have a clear advantage over tabs. They care less about freedom and more about ensuring that the code looks they way they want it to, no matter who’s reading and on what machine. In his post, Chase explains his own experience of using spaces at his workplace, and the negative effects it had on co-workers with visual impairment. While, with tabs, you aligning it with the tab key. Tabs, represented by arrows, are on the right. Spaces vs. tabs has literally been dubbed the "eternal holy war," and is the subject of many a heated debate. For example he analyses the data by country, by developer type and language, and by years of experience. It certainly sounds wonderful in theory, although there are a couple of things which I don’t really like about the proposal. It is possible that programmers that are on average lazier use tabs and those who are more zestful use spaces and the correlation is caused by personality. They promised to solve this problem once and for all by rehabilitating the "tabs for everything" convention, making the tabstops themselves flexible so that they could be used everywhere without the need for spaces to pad things out. Why I prefer tab (or: why tab exist): 1) Almost all programs use now tab = 4 spaces as default; All programs allow to customize the tab length. In terms of how many spaces (or tabs) constitutes indentation, it's more important to be consistent throughout your code than to use any specific tab stop value. No matter which option you prefer you’ll always have to abide by the conventions set out by the community in which you’re working. What's the best way to format your code? In the article “Developers Who Use Spaces Make More Money Than Those Who Use Tabs”, David compares the average salary of programmers who use spaces with the average salary of programmers who use tabs. This leads to not all code indentation looking the same across multiple developers systems. In general, tabs take fewer key presses and use less computer storage, but are more imprecise. “They’re a character specifically meant for indentation. When we asked you, our readers, the question last summer, spaces came out on top.That said, it's a nuanced question where things like programming language, editor, and project style all should play a role. By all means, set a standard for your own projects (I chose "spaces for everything" many years ago, probably because I wanted to be sure that things displayed nicely everywhere and because I didn’t have faith in my fellow human beings to actually follow more complicated conventions, and now I stick to it out of habit more than anything else) but in the end you’re going to have to learn to be flexible. There’s the rub. Tab character by default are replaced by 4 spaces in Visual Studio Code. In these, it is always easy to convert from the former to the latter, but near impossible from the latter to the former. Tabs vs spaces (or spaces vs tabs), and elastic tabstops. (Note that all the results were converted into US dollars from each respondent’s currency). by piping the text through something like expand, which would normally fix presenting a file with the wrong tab size. A useful thing is to show tabs and spaces in the source view. “A tab could be a different number of columns depending on your environment, but a space is always one column.” “Tabs,” reads the counter argument. Traditionally source code has been rendered with a monospace font. They love the fact that you can use a tab-stop of 4 and they can use a tab-stop of 8 and they’ll see the code with the indentation that they like, not the one that you do. tabs vs spaces, 3 spaces vs 4 spaces I used to work at a place where a huge argument occurred between staff, fighting over tabs vs spaces. Even if all the editors in the world suddenly started supporting them, how would your code look when viewed in the Terminal with cat or less? There may be no direct causation between using spaces over tabs, it may simply be a side effect of working for big businesses. The Linux kernel coding style prefers tabs, too. Using code compressors are a different story altogether, but this is pain! He therefore concludes, that there is a clear correlation between earning more and using spaces over tabs, but it still all may simply be a coincidence and there may be no real causation. Of course the tab character doesn’t have a defined width so flame wars have erupted around spaces vs tabs, on par with the great editor wars of the last century. Another co-worked of his is using a tab-width of 8 because that works best for his situation with a wide monitor. Change ). Is there a Money Difference for Developers? I believe David makes a good case and that there may really be a connection between using spaces over tabs and earning more. The type of indentation used for a language can have varied effects. In short, it’s all about the control of the writer of the code. it is not automatic, i know ... just assign key shortcut for code reformat. That said, only a moron would use tabs to format their code. My advice to David would be to collect more data and consider more factors in his research of the subject. One is that to make our example align nicely we’d actually need to insert whitespace before the first function parameter, param1, which feels a little unnatural: My other minor complaint is that the flexible, automatic alignment only works for things which are on contiguous lines; that is, if we drop middle comment in our example, our trailing comments will no longer align: To correct either of these problems your only option is to fall back to spaces again, thus eliminating the number one benefit promised by elastic tabstops (convenience). For example, larger firms often have more requirements and may require spaces for consistency. this will override your editor config / any modern IDE settings and then, AUTO-REFORMAT CODE :) (Ctrl+Shift+P and search for Format document) it will reformat your code and replace tabs -> spaces or what you will setup. ( Log Out / How would your changes look when inspected with git diff? Made by Greg Hurrell using React, Relay and GraphQL (with help from Git, Redis and Neovim). Some preferred tabs because it was less work to press tab once than space bar four times, and others argued that, with fewer characters, T-SQL code would perform better. I thought I had a syntax problem or forgot a semicolon somewhere, but everything looks good. Ultimately these are pointless arguments. There are also many other factors that may impact the use of spaces vs tabs. Trivial as the debate may seem, it runs hot in coding circles. How would patches look when sent via email? Larger firms also pay more on average so that may be the cause. They love the fact that you can use a tab-stop of 4 and they can use a tab-stop of 8 and they’ll see the code with the indentation that they like, not the one that you do. Considering the other face of the coin, it is also possible that there is a link between using spaces over tabs since using spaces requires more effort and attention to detail. “Spaces,” reads one argument. Perhaps it is simply a coincident that programmers who use spaces for indentation purposes earn more than those that use tabs. Spaces, on the other hand, offer more clarity for coders, but practice takes up more space. David eliminates confounding factors by looking at subsections of the data. In his article, David Robinson, analyses sets of data to predict whether there is a connection between salary and using spaces over tabs. This allows for manual horizontal positioning with spaces or tab characters. Recently on Twitter there was a conversation about tabs vs. spaces in T-SQL code. A space always represents a single column. If it weren’t the inherent tendency of human beings to lack intelligence, discipline and insight then I’m sure this position would be a clear winner. Even if you believe that all the editors in the world could be changed, and all the command-line tools, and all programmers could be convinced of the utility of switching, can you imagine the Apple will ever update Mail.app to display your patches accurately? Some people say you should use spaces for everything. Spaces Basically, it’s all about the personal freedom of the reader of the code. Choose tabs, choose spaces, choose whatever layout conventions make sense to you and your team. Spaces, represented by dots, are on the left. Perhaps the real correlation is between effort and salary and programmers who are more attentive and consider how things really function in their code use spaces. Given a tab-stop of 4 we have to use some spaces to force the alignment into the desired position: Compare the diffrence with a tab-stop of 2: This is the mixed camp which tries to reconcile things by suggesting that tabs be used only for indenting and spaces be used for all alignment: Undoubtedly a very nice way of permitting reader freedom as well as offering the writer a reasonable guarantee that the code will look relatively close to how they wrote it. Thus, for example, a using statement in C# (using System;) would count towards the spaces total where it shouldn't count towards either (unless preceded by spaces or tabs for some reason). But it expects you to be consistent.
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