6 ms·

Why I prefer no tabs in source code

83 points by miles 17y ago

mike_mc 17y ago
"Or consider someone who is on an 80x25 terminal"... ok now where are just getting silly. This discussion isnt even really technical but more of a aesthetic opinion. A single standard would be best but it wont happen because it really doesnt matter as long as the code runs and your coders arent actively making text-pictures. Also that free BSD example is only because they have the time to format their comments like that. No one really comments like that , its unnecessary and if it causes problems then a simpler form should be used.
- jrockway 17y ago
  No one really comments like that , its unnecessary and if it causes problems then a simpler form should be used. I comment like this. It's also not hard to do. You type something like: some line of code ; here is my comment, blah blah blah, very long, blah blah blah Then press M-q ("fill-paragraph"), and Emacs turns it into: some line of code ; here is my comment, blah blah ; blah, very long, blah blah blah Sometimes this looks nicer than: ;; here is my comment, blah blah blah, very long, ;; blah blah blah some line of code Anyway, both styles are quite common. "Or consider someone who is on an 80x25 terminal"... ok now where are just getting silly. I always consider people on 80 column terminals, because although I have a huge monitor, I would like to display more than one file at a time. Aiming for 80 columns means that you appeal to the "lowest common denominator" and it means that you can have lots of files within easy visual reach. (I actually end up near 90 at home and 85 at work... but I try not to exceed 78 too often.)
  - Dobbs 17y ago
    Those that are curious "gq" does the same thing on vim. Use ":set tw=<number of columns>" to tell vim the maximum number of columns (80 by default)
cduan 17y ago
1. Interesting that both this and the opposing article were submitted by the same person (which suggests to me that the "I" in the article titles does not refer to the submitter). 2. Sometimes I use tabs. Sometimes I don't. I can never really remember, because Vim is set to :expandtab for me on some of my machines. What I do know is that I never really care. I use the ^T, ^D, <<, >>, and = commands to shift my left margin around in Vim. I haven't typed a space or a tab at the beginning of a line in years. After all, why use low-level functions when you have high-level ones?
ubernostrum 17y ago
As I said in the other thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058237 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058237
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
shin_lao 17y ago
Oh yes. Tabs or spaces in source code. That's really what makes software great. Just have guidelines and stick to them. What sucks is inconsistency. Everybody's got an opinion about code layout. It doesn't matter. There's no good or bad layout. Readability is just another word for "looking like stuff I'm used to read".
- forsaken 17y ago
  What's interesting is that I never used to care how code was indented, never bothered me. However, I got a job using Python/Django, and almost all of the code in that community is in the PEP8 style (4 space indents, etc, http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/). Now whenever I read python code that is outside of PEP8 just a little bit, it makes me cringe, but I can still read other, non python code indented almost any way. Thought that was interesting.
  - ajross 17y ago
    To be fair, this is partly because python is uniquely sensitive to whitespace issues. Other languages don't tend to care as much. C code that's mixed between 2, 4, and 8 space indentation might be untidy, but it's really not that big a deal to read it as long as the code isn't broken in other ways.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    Why don't IDE's just do the conversion on the fly on a per-user basis? Sure you'd need to know the standard occasionally but can't the code just load with my "stylesheet" and then use tabs. Then when it's saved the code is simply reverted to space delimits. This sort of formatting issue should not be an issue anymore surely?
- mrinterweb 17y ago
  This is especially true when multiple developers have been editing the same file. Some developers will use tabs some spaces. The end result is code that is completely unreadable and that must be manually re-indented. The developer that uses tabs that is editing a hard space indented file, might not even realize what evil they are introducing to a file. Then the next developer opens the file and screams.
hga 17y ago
Hmmm; back in the '80s and early to mid-'90s I found that the use of tabs for indentation was a reliable marker of bad code.
- teeja 17y ago
  I found that indented languages were a giant PITA. Oh yeah, and I'd rather GOTO label than BREAK.
gte910h 17y ago
python... tabs == devil in python.
- nailer 17y ago
  You're being modded down as that's not a complete sentence, but yes, since there's a standard (PEP 8) stating that spaces are preferable to tabs, and that indentation should be 4 characters, and all modules I've seen use that standard, tabs are indeed looked upon as being bad in Python.
  - gte910h 17y ago
    It's not just that. The REASON why tabs are so bad is because it makes very very subtle errors when they get mixed. Additionally, tabs are 8 spaces to the python interpreter. If you're not using 8 space tab stop, you're setting up people who use your code for a world of hurt if they ever change anything in your files.
    - jvdh 17y ago
      tabs and spaces are different things to the Python interpreter. If you really want to, you can mix them in your code. But you cannot mix tabs and spaces on the same indent level.
    - camccann 17y ago
      The REASON why tabs are so bad is because it makes very very subtle errors when they get mixed. And the reason why spaces are bad is because it makes subtle errors when they get mixed in with tab-indented code. This is an argument for consistency, not for using spaces.
Batsu 17y ago
"It's less portable, since different editors/pagers render a hard tab as varying numbers of spaces, and most editors can have this number altered on a per-user basis too. If you use spaces instead of tabs, you're never relying on a particular editor or pager to have tab width set correctly. Even if you're prepared to configure every editor/pager/platform combination you use, aren't you going to be making life difficult for others who want to read or modify your code?" Nearly every editor I've used allows you to adjust tab size. In my mind, that means tabs allow every user to set the width that they prefer.
mebigfatguy 17y ago
it only matters if you do both. only do one.
mahmud 17y ago
OT: Do you not people see these two twin (troll?) threads posted by the same person? Within the same minute? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058196 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058196 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058195 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058195 http://i.imgur.com/m1DyR.png http://i.imgur.com/m1DyR.png Someone went out of his way to find two trivial, but hot-button issues and submitted an argument for each. It's another "experiment".
- allenbrunson 17y ago
  why would you call this trolling? the submitter's history indicates he is participating here in good faith. and i think the idea of finding two articles espousing diametrically opposed ideas and submitting them both is pretty clever. further, the conversations generated seem to indicate that people here want to talk about this constructively.
  - mahmud 17y ago
    It's understood that one thread serves as channel for communication, so a discussion can take place between both sides. A second thread only dilutes the conversation; there are no separate parliament houses for separate party members, they all share one. If I came across an opposing view, I would typically submit it in a comment/reply, not start a separate thread. And if you look at the topic IDs, they were submitted right after the other (i.e. submitter knew of both sides before hand.) That, and the triviality of the subject made be suspicious of the submitter's intentions. I didn't mean to be hurtful, but, for crying out loud ..
    - allenbrunson 17y ago
      here's why i think it's clever. there are certain evergreen topics here that are always going to lead to heated debate. iphone versus android versus pre, mac versus windows versus linux, rails versus drupal versus php, ruby versus python versus c++ versus perl versus lisp, etc etc etc. each time an article is posted here that takes a stand one way or the other, it prejudices the resultant discussion. it's sort of inherently understood that, if you want to comment strongly anti-iphone, you better wait until the posted article itself is also anti-iphone, or else you're going to face stiff opposition and downvotes. by posting two articles, one pro-tab and one anti-tab, the submitter has neatly sidestepped that problem. if news.yc tilted strongly one way or the other, you'd expect one article or the other to get most of the upvotes, and the other one would sink. as it turns out, both articles have been running neck-and-neck for hours. interesting. it shows that tab lovers and haters exist here in equal proportions, which i really wouldn't have guessed.
bluesnowmonkey 17y ago
Sometimes I want to copy/paste SQL from the source code to a command-line interface like mysql or sqlplus. Tab characters are interpreted as tab keypresses, triggering auto-completion. To get around it I have to open a blank file in a text editor, paste the SQL, convert the tabs to spaces, then highlight/copy it again. It's a pain in the ass. I can't be the only one with this problem, but I never see it mentioned in tabs/spaces debates.
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  Decent SQL editors (such as PL/SQL Developer for Oracle) have functionality to convert SQL to various formats such as single line or even multi-line strings for various languages.
camccann 17y ago
If you use spaces instead of tabs, you're never relying on a particular editor or pager to have tab width set correctly. Tabs aren't just used at the beginning of lines. There might be a left-aligned, multi-line comment to the right of a block of code(...) I cannot fathom what point he thinks he's making with these. If you're using tabs in a way that depends on tab width, you're doing it wrong. Tab indentation generally means that one tab character is one layer of indenting. That's it. It's about semantic structure, not layout. If you want to make ASCII art, or align things like paragraph-style comments, or "indent" things that aren't part of a block of code like pieces of a lengthy conditional clause split over multiple lines, use spaces instead (and then the five people who use proportional fonts will complain that using spaces for alignment "isn't portable"). Of course, if you're using a language with an off-side rule for syntactic whitespace even a die-hard tabber ought to just use spaces. Personally, I dislike that sort of non-semantic formatting business in source code (and I think off-side rules in syntax are a horrible idea), but that's a matter of taste. And obviously, consistency is vastly more important than the particulars of indenting style. But I get tired of people arguing against tabs on the basis of not knowing how to use them properly. On the other hand, this unintentionally makes a different, very strong argument in favor of using spaces: people can't manage to use tabs properly, so don't let them. This is why we can't have nice things, folks!
DrJokepu 17y ago
This is 2010. I'm using Visual Studio for most of my work and I never had to care about this tabs-vs-space thing. (When I work on Linux I use vim and I believe my macros are set up to use spaces but I'm not completely sure.) I don't even know which one Visual Studio is using and honestly, I don't really care either. It just works. It should be up to the IDE to sort out ridiculously marginal questions such as this.

83 points by miles 17y ago

"Or consider someone who is on an 80x25 terminal"... ok now where are just getting silly. This discussion isnt even really technical but more of a aesthetic opinion. A single standard would be best but it wont happen because it really doesnt matter as long as the code runs and your coders arent actively making text-pictures. Also that free BSD example is only because they have the time to format their comments like that. No one really comments like that , its unnecessary and if it causes problems then a simpler form should be used.

jrockway 17y ago
No one really comments like that , its unnecessary and if it causes problems then a simpler form should be used. I comment like this. It's also not hard to do. You type something like: some line of code ; here is my comment, blah blah blah, very long, blah blah blah Then press M-q ("fill-paragraph"), and Emacs turns it into: some line of code ; here is my comment, blah blah ; blah, very long, blah blah blah Sometimes this looks nicer than: ;; here is my comment, blah blah blah, very long, ;; blah blah blah some line of code Anyway, both styles are quite common. "Or consider someone who is on an 80x25 terminal"... ok now where are just getting silly. I always consider people on 80 column terminals, because although I have a huge monitor, I would like to display more than one file at a time. Aiming for 80 columns means that you appeal to the "lowest common denominator" and it means that you can have lots of files within easy visual reach. (I actually end up near 90 at home and 85 at work... but I try not to exceed 78 too often.)
- Dobbs 17y ago
  Those that are curious "gq" does the same thing on vim. Use ":set tw=<number of columns>" to tell vim the maximum number of columns (80 by default)

cduan 17y ago

1. Interesting that both this and the opposing article were submitted by the same person (which suggests to me that the "I" in the article titles does not refer to the submitter). 2. Sometimes I use tabs. Sometimes I don't. I can never really remember, because Vim is set to :expandtab for me on some of my machines. What I do know is that I never really care. I use the ^T, ^D, <<, >>, and = commands to shift my left margin around in Vim. I haven't typed a space or a tab at the beginning of a line in years. After all, why use low-level functions when you have high-level ones?

ubernostrum 17y ago

As I said in the other thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058237 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058237

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

shin_lao 17y ago

Oh yes. Tabs or spaces in source code. That's really what makes software great. Just have guidelines and stick to them. What sucks is inconsistency. Everybody's got an opinion about code layout. It doesn't matter. There's no good or bad layout. Readability is just another word for "looking like stuff I'm used to read".

forsaken 17y ago
What's interesting is that I never used to care how code was indented, never bothered me. However, I got a job using Python/Django, and almost all of the code in that community is in the PEP8 style (4 space indents, etc, http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/). Now whenever I read python code that is outside of PEP8 just a little bit, it makes me cringe, but I can still read other, non python code indented almost any way. Thought that was interesting.
- ajross 17y ago
  To be fair, this is partly because python is uniquely sensitive to whitespace issues. Other languages don't tend to care as much. C code that's mixed between 2, 4, and 8 space indentation might be untidy, but it's really not that big a deal to read it as long as the code isn't broken in other ways.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Why don't IDE's just do the conversion on the fly on a per-user basis? Sure you'd need to know the standard occasionally but can't the code just load with my "stylesheet" and then use tabs. Then when it's saved the code is simply reverted to space delimits. This sort of formatting issue should not be an issue anymore surely?
mrinterweb 17y ago
This is especially true when multiple developers have been editing the same file. Some developers will use tabs some spaces. The end result is code that is completely unreadable and that must be manually re-indented. The developer that uses tabs that is editing a hard space indented file, might not even realize what evil they are introducing to a file. Then the next developer opens the file and screams.

hga 17y ago

Hmmm; back in the '80s and early to mid-'90s I found that the use of tabs for indentation was a reliable marker of bad code.

teeja 17y ago
I found that indented languages were a giant PITA. Oh yeah, and I'd rather GOTO label than BREAK.

gte910h 17y ago

python... tabs == devil in python.

nailer 17y ago
You're being modded down as that's not a complete sentence, but yes, since there's a standard (PEP 8) stating that spaces are preferable to tabs, and that indentation should be 4 characters, and all modules I've seen use that standard, tabs are indeed looked upon as being bad in Python.
- gte910h 17y ago
  It's not just that. The REASON why tabs are so bad is because it makes very very subtle errors when they get mixed. Additionally, tabs are 8 spaces to the python interpreter. If you're not using 8 space tab stop, you're setting up people who use your code for a world of hurt if they ever change anything in your files.
  - jvdh 17y ago
    tabs and spaces are different things to the Python interpreter. If you really want to, you can mix them in your code. But you cannot mix tabs and spaces on the same indent level.
  - camccann 17y ago
    The REASON why tabs are so bad is because it makes very very subtle errors when they get mixed. And the reason why spaces are bad is because it makes subtle errors when they get mixed in with tab-indented code. This is an argument for consistency, not for using spaces.

Batsu 17y ago

"It's less portable, since different editors/pagers render a hard tab as varying numbers of spaces, and most editors can have this number altered on a per-user basis too. If you use spaces instead of tabs, you're never relying on a particular editor or pager to have tab width set correctly. Even if you're prepared to configure every editor/pager/platform combination you use, aren't you going to be making life difficult for others who want to read or modify your code?" Nearly every editor I've used allows you to adjust tab size. In my mind, that means tabs allow every user to set the width that they prefer.

mebigfatguy 17y ago

it only matters if you do both. only do one.

mahmud 17y ago

OT: Do you not people see these two twin (troll?) threads posted by the same person? Within the same minute? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058196 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058196 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058195 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058195 http://i.imgur.com/m1DyR.png http://i.imgur.com/m1DyR.png Someone went out of his way to find two trivial, but hot-button issues and submitted an argument for each. It's another "experiment".

allenbrunson 17y ago
why would you call this trolling? the submitter's history indicates he is participating here in good faith. and i think the idea of finding two articles espousing diametrically opposed ideas and submitting them both is pretty clever. further, the conversations generated seem to indicate that people here want to talk about this constructively.
- mahmud 17y ago
  It's understood that one thread serves as channel for communication, so a discussion can take place between both sides. A second thread only dilutes the conversation; there are no separate parliament houses for separate party members, they all share one. If I came across an opposing view, I would typically submit it in a comment/reply, not start a separate thread. And if you look at the topic IDs, they were submitted right after the other (i.e. submitter knew of both sides before hand.) That, and the triviality of the subject made be suspicious of the submitter's intentions. I didn't mean to be hurtful, but, for crying out loud ..
  - allenbrunson 17y ago
    here's why i think it's clever. there are certain evergreen topics here that are always going to lead to heated debate. iphone versus android versus pre, mac versus windows versus linux, rails versus drupal versus php, ruby versus python versus c++ versus perl versus lisp, etc etc etc. each time an article is posted here that takes a stand one way or the other, it prejudices the resultant discussion. it's sort of inherently understood that, if you want to comment strongly anti-iphone, you better wait until the posted article itself is also anti-iphone, or else you're going to face stiff opposition and downvotes. by posting two articles, one pro-tab and one anti-tab, the submitter has neatly sidestepped that problem. if news.yc tilted strongly one way or the other, you'd expect one article or the other to get most of the upvotes, and the other one would sink. as it turns out, both articles have been running neck-and-neck for hours. interesting. it shows that tab lovers and haters exist here in equal proportions, which i really wouldn't have guessed.

bluesnowmonkey 17y ago

Sometimes I want to copy/paste SQL from the source code to a command-line interface like mysql or sqlplus. Tab characters are interpreted as tab keypresses, triggering auto-completion. To get around it I have to open a blank file in a text editor, paste the SQL, convert the tabs to spaces, then highlight/copy it again. It's a pain in the ass. I can't be the only one with this problem, but I never see it mentioned in tabs/spaces debates.

DrJokepu 17y ago
Decent SQL editors (such as PL/SQL Developer for Oracle) have functionality to convert SQL to various formats such as single line or even multi-line strings for various languages.

camccann 17y ago

If you use spaces instead of tabs, you're never relying on a particular editor or pager to have tab width set correctly. Tabs aren't just used at the beginning of lines. There might be a left-aligned, multi-line comment to the right of a block of code(...) I cannot fathom what point he thinks he's making with these. If you're using tabs in a way that depends on tab width, you're doing it wrong. Tab indentation generally means that one tab character is one layer of indenting. That's it. It's about semantic structure, not layout. If you want to make ASCII art, or align things like paragraph-style comments, or "indent" things that aren't part of a block of code like pieces of a lengthy conditional clause split over multiple lines, use spaces instead (and then the five people who use proportional fonts will complain that using spaces for alignment "isn't portable"). Of course, if you're using a language with an off-side rule for syntactic whitespace even a die-hard tabber ought to just use spaces. Personally, I dislike that sort of non-semantic formatting business in source code (and I think off-side rules in syntax are a horrible idea), but that's a matter of taste. And obviously, consistency is vastly more important than the particulars of indenting style. But I get tired of people arguing against tabs on the basis of not knowing how to use them properly. On the other hand, this unintentionally makes a different, very strong argument in favor of using spaces: people can't manage to use tabs properly, so don't let them. This is why we can't have nice things, folks!

DrJokepu 17y ago

This is 2010. I'm using Visual Studio for most of my work and I never had to care about this tabs-vs-space thing. (When I work on Linux I use vim and I believe my macros are set up to use spaces but I'm not completely sure.) I don't even know which one Visual Studio is using and honestly, I don't really care either. It just works. It should be up to the IDE to sort out ridiculously marginal questions such as this.