Often different editors on a project (hell, even between computers for the same user) may display the same file different ways, and you almost always end up wit

Often different editors on a project (hell, even between computers for the same user) may display the same file different ways, and you almost always end up with weird mixes of spaces/tabs when indenting things (especially if you're super picky like I can be and really, really care about things lining up). Simply having the editor expand tabs (to whatever people agreed on, usually 4 for C/C++ that I've seen) and save spaces, always, makes life simpler. EDIT: See Grandpa Zawinski's post on same: http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html