4 ms·

This may be controversial, but I find 2-character indented Javascript, coming from my 4-character indented Java, for the projects I work on, as much of a shock

This may be controversial, but I find 2-character indented Javascript, coming from my 4-character indented Java, for the projects I work on, as much of a shock as moving between braces and Python. Particularly if it has been subjected to an opinionated formatter that just doesn't match my personal style. Completely unreadable, I mumble under my breath. And then my eyes adjust to it for a bit, and after an... hour? (maybe) of coding in the (ahum) "hostile" style, it's familiar (again) and we're on our way.

dotancohen 2y ago
This is why I prefer tabs for indentation. I get to see 4 spaces, the blue haired frontend kid gets to see 2 spaces, and Linus gets to see 8. Everybody's happy.
- raffraffraff 2y ago
  8?? His neck must be sore.
- leni536 2y ago
  Sounds good in theory, but I never saw a project that used tabs and didn't look like a complete mess when viewed with the non-blessed tab width.
  - shakna 2y ago
    Pretty sure the Linux source tree looks fine at a tab width of 2 instead of the blessed 8.
  - ahartmetz 2y ago
    Emacs even "helpfully" auto-converts <tab width> spaces to one tab, no matter where.
  - arp242 2y ago
    It's fine as long as you don't use tabs for visual alignment. Especially C projects tend to do this, and/or have a weird mix of tabs and spaces (e.g. indent by four spaces, but all eight spaces are tabs). That's just silly. But if you just always indent by n tabs, and align with spaces for visual alignment, then it's not a problem. This is what e.g. gofmt does.
- the_other 2y ago
  If you can also get your colleagues to do things like putting their `&&` style logical operators on new lines, then tabs for indents works really well. (This isn't the best example of what I'm getting at, but it's easy to grasp. A stronger example would be the use of ternary operators with multiple lines of JSX. There are many "micro-syntaxes" or "micro-layouts" that help readability and form common patterns in code bases which don't play well with tabs-for-indents, so when you use tabs, you have to train your team to develop and accept novel versions of these "micro-layouts".)
- RHSeeger 2y ago
  The problem with tabs is that you can't really do alignment with them, unless you have elastic tabs (which are pretty much nowhere). I love the idea of tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment, but even bringing up the idea of using both gets one branded a heretic, so that's out. Which pretty much leaves only spaces if you want to allow for alignment.
  - segfaltnh 2y ago
    For what it's worth, this is how the built in and mandatory Go formatter works and it's "fine".
  - MrJohz 2y ago
    I'm really sceptical of the idea of mixing two different invisible characters in the same file, which is why the tabs+spaces idea makes me feel slightly icky. But another option is just not using alignment spaces at all - if you want to align two parameters/statements/etc, you always split them onto their own lines and use indents directly instead of alignment. In other words, instead of: def my_func(self, param): You always do something like: def my_func( self, param, ):
    - dTal 2y ago
      I tend to agree that you shouldn't be "aligning" things with spaces anyway. If nothing else, it causes diff pollution when the length of a line changes and you have to add or delete spaces to adjacent lines to keep things even, even though no semantic change to those lines has occurred. However, regarding "mixing two different invisible characters in the same file" - you can, and should, configure your text editor to display tabs in a visually distinct way from spaces. Kate (my favorite) shows them as chevrons. Geany and Notepad++ show them as arrows. Not only does this make it easier to scan vertically along an indentation level, but doing so also makes it glaringly obvious if a pesky space has snuck in, resulting in a jarring misalignment.
      - RHSeeger 2y ago
        > If nothing else, it causes diff pollution when the length of a line changes and you have to add or delete spaces to adjacent lines to keep things even, even though no semantic change to those lines has occurred. While I agree with this in general, I find making the code nicer to read to be more important that avoiding diff pollution. Especially when that diff pollution can be avoided with a simple "ignore whitespace" in most cases.

dotancohen 2y ago

This is why I prefer tabs for indentation. I get to see 4 spaces, the blue haired frontend kid gets to see 2 spaces, and Linus gets to see 8. Everybody's happy.

raffraffraff 2y ago
8?? His neck must be sore.
leni536 2y ago
Sounds good in theory, but I never saw a project that used tabs and didn't look like a complete mess when viewed with the non-blessed tab width.
- shakna 2y ago
  Pretty sure the Linux source tree looks fine at a tab width of 2 instead of the blessed 8.
- ahartmetz 2y ago
  Emacs even "helpfully" auto-converts <tab width> spaces to one tab, no matter where.
- arp242 2y ago
  It's fine as long as you don't use tabs for visual alignment. Especially C projects tend to do this, and/or have a weird mix of tabs and spaces (e.g. indent by four spaces, but all eight spaces are tabs). That's just silly. But if you just always indent by n tabs, and align with spaces for visual alignment, then it's not a problem. This is what e.g. gofmt does.
the_other 2y ago
If you can also get your colleagues to do things like putting their `&&` style logical operators on new lines, then tabs for indents works really well. (This isn't the best example of what I'm getting at, but it's easy to grasp. A stronger example would be the use of ternary operators with multiple lines of JSX. There are many "micro-syntaxes" or "micro-layouts" that help readability and form common patterns in code bases which don't play well with tabs-for-indents, so when you use tabs, you have to train your team to develop and accept novel versions of these "micro-layouts".)
RHSeeger 2y ago
The problem with tabs is that you can't really do alignment with them, unless you have elastic tabs (which are pretty much nowhere). I love the idea of tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment, but even bringing up the idea of using both gets one branded a heretic, so that's out. Which pretty much leaves only spaces if you want to allow for alignment.
- segfaltnh 2y ago
  For what it's worth, this is how the built in and mandatory Go formatter works and it's "fine".
- MrJohz 2y ago
  I'm really sceptical of the idea of mixing two different invisible characters in the same file, which is why the tabs+spaces idea makes me feel slightly icky. But another option is just not using alignment spaces at all - if you want to align two parameters/statements/etc, you always split them onto their own lines and use indents directly instead of alignment. In other words, instead of: def my_func(self, param): You always do something like: def my_func( self, param, ):
  - dTal 2y ago
    I tend to agree that you shouldn't be "aligning" things with spaces anyway. If nothing else, it causes diff pollution when the length of a line changes and you have to add or delete spaces to adjacent lines to keep things even, even though no semantic change to those lines has occurred. However, regarding "mixing two different invisible characters in the same file" - you can, and should, configure your text editor to display tabs in a visually distinct way from spaces. Kate (my favorite) shows them as chevrons. Geany and Notepad++ show them as arrows. Not only does this make it easier to scan vertically along an indentation level, but doing so also makes it glaringly obvious if a pesky space has snuck in, resulting in a jarring misalignment.
    - RHSeeger 2y ago
      > If nothing else, it causes diff pollution when the length of a line changes and you have to add or delete spaces to adjacent lines to keep things even, even though no semantic change to those lines has occurred. While I agree with this in general, I find making the code nicer to read to be more important that avoiding diff pollution. Especially when that diff pollution can be avoided with a simple "ignore whitespace" in most cases.