Mark Rages wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Dwayne Reid wrote:
>> That said: how can tabs be better than spaces when the very
>> definition of a tab stop is variable? 
> 
> I prefer spaces, but I understand the attraction of tabs. 
> 
> In indented source code, it lets you abstract the actual indentation
> from the display.  So tabs indicate "indent 1 level", "indent 2
> levels" etc. 
> 
> Some people like wide indentation that spreads the code across the
> page.  Some just like a few characters.   So just set your tab stop
> to your preferred amount of indentation, and the editor will display
> tabbed code exactly to your liking -- no reformatting needed. 

This works ok if tabs are /only/ used to mark proper (logical)
indentation level, only at the beginning of the line, never together
with spaces or characters and never to place something at the same
location as something above it that's a few tabs and then a few
characters (like e.g. indenting the second line of a function header
with the continuation of the variable list). But this isn't how people
generally use the tab key. Which makes code with tabs generally
difficult to read if you don't have the same tab setting as the author.

Gerhard
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