The big point of tabs and spaces, IMO, isn't which is better. It's about making pull requests legible. It's easier to review code that isn't mucked up with a bunch of committed lines that are just indentation changes.

This is why EditorConfig works well for open source projects, because it enforces everyone working on it to adopt the conventions of the project, rather than each individual's conventions.

I mostly write JavaScript these days. I set my editor so a tab is 2 spaces. So used to it by now that 4 spaces for indentation is just way too much.

I like to use EditorConfig in any of my new projects these days. It allows you to add a config file to your project to enforce style guide rules that aren't linter specific. And most IDEs have an EditorConfig plugin to enforce the config.

Any respectable IDE had an automatic format hotkey. I mean, Visual Studio has it, so why would any respectable IDE not have it as well?

it's like duuuuuuuuuubstep on your wedding day

It's ironic that a song about called ironic uses examples that aren't ironic. So it's ironic after all.

We need to go deeper. BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I've made it so every developer hired at my company gets Clean Code and Clean Coder if they don't already have them.

Top 9 qualities of clean code

-->|if (output != null)
-->|{
-->|-->|output.append("account_id").append('\t')xxxxxxx// comment about account_id
-->|-->|xxxxxx.append("submission_id").append('\t')xxxx// comment about submission_id
-->|-->|xxxxxx.append("payment_method").append('\t');xx// comment about payment_method
-->|}


You never have to worry about downloading a file and opening it up in an editor and having it looks like awful nonsense. Considering that almost any text editor or IDE one would use for coding allows you to set Tab Space by filetype, workspace, user, or application wide, it can be super consistent.

Though honestly, it's whatever your team decides, I'm a Clean Coder and that's the law I live by.

The wonderful thing about using tabs for indenting and spaces for aligning (or making code pretty) is that it doesn't matter what editor you open it up in, it will look pretty and match your preferred indent size (as long as you are using a fixed width font, variable width font users are just wrong, and they deserve to look at ugly, slightly misaligned code all day long).

My example opened in an editor that has tabs set to 6-spaces wide:
---->|if (output != null)
---->|{
---->|---->|output.append("account_id").append('\t')xxxxxxx// comment about account_id
---->|---->|xxxxxx.append("submission_id").append('\t')xxxx// comment about submission_id
---->|---->|xxxxxx.append("payment_method").append('\t');xx// comment about payment_method
---->|}


But yes, above all stick to your team's coding standards, please!

Edit: are you a python guy? I suspect you may be...

Considering only professional coding (not including internships):

8 years of .NET before becoming a consultant and now 4 years of Salesforce, Python, .NET, Javascript (mostly a typescript junkie)

I'm not a fan of space sensitive languages, and prefer 4 space styling. But yeah, as always stick to your team's coding standards, which are hopefully heavily based on some existing language styling guide.

I keep forgetting I need to watch that show. Clips like this just make me wonder what's taking me so long.

I'll have to watch it alone, though; i can pretty much guarantee my wife will NOT be interested. :)

*May not be true

-->|if (output != null)
-->|{
-->|-->|output.append("account_id").append('\t')xxxxxxx// comment about account_id
-->|-->|xxxxxx.append("submission_id").append('\t')xxxx// comment about submission_id
-->|-->|xxxxxx.append("payment_method").append('\t');xx// comment about payment_method
-->|}


You never have to worry about downloading a file and opening it up in an editor and having it looks like awful nonsense. Considering that almost any text editor or IDE one would use for coding allows you to set Tab Space by filetype, workspace, user, or application wide, it can be super consistent.

Though honestly, it's whatever your team decides, I'm a Clean Coder and that's the law I live by.

The wonderful thing about using tabs for indenting and spaces for aligning (or making code pretty) is that it doesn't matter what editor you open it up in, it will look pretty and match your preferred indent size (as long as you are using a fixed width font, variable width font users are just wrong, and they deserve to look at ugly, slightly misaligned code all day long).

My example opened in an editor that has tabs set to 6-spaces wide:
---->|if (output != null)
---->|{
---->|---->|output.append("account_id").append('\t')xxxxxxx// comment about account_id
---->|---->|xxxxxx.append("submission_id").append('\t')xxxx// comment about submission_id
---->|---->|xxxxxx.append("payment_method").append('\t');xx// comment about payment_method
---->|}


But yes, above all stick to your team's coding standards, please!

Edit: are you a python guy? I suspect you may be...

Is I've never seen anyone who tabs, regardless of by spaces or straight tabs, with the spacebar...

I have one coworker who does, in my 2+ decades of coding he's the only one I remember doing this. He also only uses 2 (maybe 3) spaces for indents, probably because he uses his space bar so much.