That’s because these programmers are getting paid by the character.
This is also why Java dev pays so well.
System.out.println(“Wow, so little amount of characters to print this!”);
std::cout << “Wow, so little amount of characters to print this!” << std::endl;
std::puts("Why do so many C++ programmers not use the right tool for the job?");
Or the slightly more readable brainfuck:
++++++++[>++++[>++>+++>+++>+<<<<-]>+>+>->>+[<]<-]>>.>---.+++++++..+++.>>.<-.<.+++.------.--------.>>+.>++.Hey! Brainfuck is a fun puzzle language and nothing someone does at a job to do money per character. Would be funny if yes
I use tabs because I prefer 4-space indents and others might prefer 2-space indentation or the gross and unacceptable 6-space indentation.
If more than one person is working on a code base, there will likely be more than one preference, and with tabs everyone gets to just set their own tab width.
Yes, even the 3-space savages.
Tabs work fine as long as you don’t align stuff. If you do, you have to assume a tab size and mix tabs and spaces.
Generally aligning stuff isn’t nice. But if you do, it’s tabs up to whatever level of indentation you’re at then spaces the rest of the way. So you wouldn’t have to assume a tab size. And the tabs and spaces have different semantic meaning (indent vs alignment) so mixing them makes sense. It’s even built into Jetbrains IDEs, where it’s called “Smart Tabs”.
Although really just adding a level of indent is better than aligning.
This is a legit observation. However, I would argue that spaces needs a set indentation width anyway, so if tabs had a set indentation width that coders are expected to maintain when aligning code, it wouldn’t make a difference. Enforcing that in practice may be different, but in theory it works.
It’s OK, I replace all the tabs with spaces for uniformity. Tabs are stupid and they mess things up when I paste stuff. I like to watch the world burn.
But you get smaller files with Tabs: https://www.madskristensen.net/blog/performance-of-tabs-vs-spaces-in-html-files ;)
That’s cause they pay us by the byte the suckers.
Imagine not using a minifier
I can imagine that just fine
I’d imagine it’s because people who use spaces are either further in their career in average (because the modern programming ecosystem in general uses tabs so new devs are more likely to only know that) or they’re just more serious about software development because the kind of person to die on that hill is also the kind of person who is very obsessive about other things as well.
Wait. Are tabs used more often in modern stuff? Almost everything I use does spaces and I’m not that new to programming. Been doing it for maybe 5 years. I use spaces in everything but Go.
Most text editors people use (like VSCode) generally automatically adjust tabs to be whatever the standard indent is for the project (and convert to spaces if it’s necessary). As a result, indenting with tabs usually just works, and so most people just learn to do it that way. Also people are used to using tabs for indent from things like Word which they used before learning to write code. As a result, I’ve noticed most people use the tab key (even if their not technically “using tabs” every time they do it).
Yeah, I have my tab key set up to insert spaces. I meant the characters being used, not the key used to write them.
I think the deeper generational thing is in the idea that anything “just works”. Like I’m a programmer, right, so I know shortcuts. Ctrl+S saves the file, simple right?
Me when I want to save a file: Ctrl+SSSS. Why? Because I don’t trust it “just works”. Same reason I don’t trust auto save. Same reason I am stunned every time I tell windows to diagnose and fix the network problem and then it actually does.
I grew up in a time where you couldn’t trust any of that shit.
I generally trust things that “just work” so long as I know why and under what conditions.
I’d assume this is a product of space users being older and thus earning more, but that is wild speculation.
[ ] tabs [ ] spaces [x] why would I even care, I press tab and the editor puts either a tab or a number of spaces, couldn’t care less…
Is there any actual advantage to using spaces? I have seen similar posts for a while and as a tab user I don’t understand why they are any better than just a tab
The indentation always looks the way you wrote it even in raw text viewers, is generally the argument.
Seven semicolons are the correct way to do indentation (it even alliterates):
int main (void) { ;;;;;;;printf("like this\n"); }the correct way is to never indent and never use whitespace. Saves memory.
Your goal should be 1LOC every month, no more.
all code should be written in one line with absolutely no breaks. it’s the most efficient way
Is this some kind of python meme I’m too C++ to understand?
Now, I’m completely willing to start a war about { going on the next line.
Totally agree, all my { end up on the next line, 1st spot when starting a function, last character of the keyword when starting an if/for/… section. I even put the closing one on the same line when it’s single line, else either at the end of the closing line (when changing really old code) or same indent.
So indenting varies a lot, which makes most ‘new’ programmers go mental.
while (my code) { I'll do it my way } if (! liked) { toughen-up } else { get used to it multi-line can go both ways... }That is, unless the font used messes it up. ;)
It goes on the line! If you put it below, you’re wasting a line for no extra readability!
It goes on the next line, so you can have open and close brackets at the same indent depth for easy visual matching.
deleted by creator
fn main() { println!("WTF?"); }PS: I know what you meant
This, as it also helps when using % to go to the matching open/close bracket when the cursos doesn’t jump all around the place…
For your viewing pleasure. https://youtu.be/SsoOG6ZeyUI
Someone here made a longer explanation in a blog post why it’s that way and what this corresponds to: https://evelinag.com/blog/2017/06-20-stackoverflow-tabs-spaces-and-salary/index.html
So people who contribute to open source use spaces more.Thiss is probably because in a collaborative environment, you can’t guarantee how tabs will look on all systems, and it may look horribly on some. An open source project is most likely to enforce a standard, and that standard kind of has to be spaces.
It makes me wonder what portion of the stack overflow survey is from people who aren’t working on collaborative projects at work.
But with tabs each contributor is free to choose how the indent looks. If it looks horrible on some system, that’s a configuration issue.
So the two camps are:
spaces: who want to be able to have accidental fractional indentation and so they can force anyone who may read their code in the future to see the indentation at the size that they intended.
tabs: who want consistent bug-resistant and logical formatting, and for any future reader to decided for themselves thier own personal best indentation size.
A possible explanation: people who want it their way at the expense of others are more likely to choose spaces, and are more likely to feel at home at a company that does exactly that in order to extract more profit from thier victi… customers.
But what about their DTF?
Down to fuckness? I suppose a greater score on this metric might help career in certain specific circumstances.
Casualty / coincidence
Edit: causality/coincidence
Well, spaces are superior, so…
