The solution is to mix tabs and spaces; most editors can be configured to clearly show tabs. Indent with tabs, then align with spaces. Never place a tab after a

The solution is to mix tabs and spaces; most editors can be configured to clearly show tabs. Indent with tabs, then align with spaces. Never place a tab after a space. If you mess up, no big problem, someone else will see it and fix it. People screw up space-alignment all the time anyway. Or, better still, don't visually align stuff. It's annoying as hell to maintain unless you use an IDE, and has a tendency to bunch stuff up toward the right margin when function names grow long. Just start the argument list indented by one tab stop on the next line. More visually consistent too.