"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

"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.