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I don't understand why so many people fight this war of tabs vs spaces. My colleagues elegantly solved the problem just not using indentation at all36
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It happened.
I wrote "you're missing a tab in your python code" as an answer on StackOverflow.
I was downvoted AND told that I wasn't correct: it was missing 4 spaces and not a tab, according to the python guidelines.
Now, I haven't read them, but my Richard Hendrix fucking intensifies.
Fuck spaces. And if python guidelines talk about spaces, fuck python guidelines too!32 -
Friend: so what is this app I always see you using on your phone?
Me: devRant, it's for developers! it gives us the chance to share rants!
Friend: Wow awesome!!! so what do you guys discuss, interesting stuff huh?
Me: Spaces.... spaces vs tabs.25 -
Spaces Vs Tabs - A real world case.
So one of the menial tasks I was given here was to take a pretty mock and turn it into an HTML email template. Needless to say, I hate emails and HTML.
After many weeks of trial and error, rejection and tweaks, we're doing our final tests when someone noticed that Google's clients are chopping off the footer and saying "View Full Email".
A few searches yield that Google has a 102KB cut off for email size. We did some checks and found that we were at 104KB. I immediately thought it was my CSS inliner being a little too verbose, but as I went in to edit things, I noticed that the file was intended with spaces!
Now I'm a fan of Silicon Valley, and I recalled an episode from this past season where Richard mentioned something about saving file size by using tabs. I had never really considered that point.
So I went back into VSCode and told it to convert all of the individual templates that make up this giant email to indent with tabs...
The file size dropped from 104kb to 82kb.
I wasn't very polarized on the Tabs vs Spaces debate, but this here has given me a nice real world example as to why tabs rule.
20 -
Dear codebeautify.org,
Go kill yourself.
No one likes you. Go die.
Love,
poster983
P.S. I'm serious.
18 -
Anyone looking for something interesting to do???
Step 1) understand how basic circuitry works on a bread board nothing too fancy. ( Implement NAND, AND, ADDER, SUBTRACTOR)
Step 2) learn about microprocessors and how OS works
Step 3) learn assembly
Step 4)write a basic assembler and understand how loaders and linkers works !
Step 5) write a kernel with very basic features like memory management and process management and some drivers for IO
Step 5) write an emulator for some simple systems .! ex chip-8.
Step 6) read about compiler theory and automata
Step 7) write a basic Python interpreter that compiles (not interpreter) to native assembly.
Step 8) implement TCP stack .
Step 9) learn as much as u can about complexity measurement ), data structures and algorithms using C or C++ it's very important ( familiarity with pointers and thus computer memory )
Step 10) learn any high level language of choice like Python or Ruby.
Step 11) stop debating over tabs vs spaces , emacs vs vim , angular vs vue, php vs Python , OOps vs procedular vs functional ( just know about all of them and when to use but don't fucking debate over which one is superior )..
Step 12) live happily and be healthy.30 -
Really annoyed by the endless tabs vs spaces discussion.
From now on, I use 4 tabs as indentation.18 -
As most of you already know, I'm a writer. I've noticed the similarities between writing and programming:
1. Tabs vs spaces.
2. Both typically spend all their time with a single project.
3. Coffee... (Unless you're a tea lover like me.)
4. Both typically have no life.
5. Debugging is hell for programmers and editing/revising is hell for writers.
6. Strict clients for programming and strict editors for writing.
7. Semicolons... They're useful but everyone despises them.
8: Emotions. Programmers are angry at their code. (Why won't you work?) and writers feel depressed about their writing. (Why did you die?)
9. War of the programs. For programmers: Vim vs VScode vs Atom vs Sublime and etc. For writers: MS word vs Google docs vs Libre office and etc.
10. Online forums. Stack overflow and Writer's digest.
11. Typing... Typing... All day long.
These are only a few similarities. I've noticed a lot more than this.16 -
"Tabs create smaller file sizes. I run a compression company, trust me, I've devoted my life to minimalizing file sizes."
- Richard Hendricks10 -
This codebase reminds me of a large, rotting, barely-alive dromedary. Parts of it function quite well, but large swaths of it are necrotic, foul-smelling, and even rotted away. Were it healthy, it would still exude a terrible stench, and its temperament would easily match: If you managed to get near enough, it would spit and try to bite you.
Swaths of code are commented out -- entire classes simply don't exist anymore, and the ghosts of several-year-old methods still linger. Despite this, large and deprecated (yet uncommented) sections of the application depend on those undefined classes/methods. Navigating the codebase is akin to walking through a minefield: if you reference the wrong method on the wrong object... fatal exception. And being very new to this project, I have no idea what's live and what isn't.
The naming scheme doesn't help, either: it's impossible to know what's still functional without asking because nothing's marked. Instead, I've been working backwards from multiple points to try to find code paths between objects/events. I'm rarely successful.
Not only can I not tell what's live code and what's interactive death, the code itself is messy and awful. Don't get me wrong: it's solid. There's virtually no way to break it. But trying to understand it ... I feel like I'm looking at a huge, sprawling MC Escher landscape through a microscope. (No exaggeration: a magnifying glass would show a larger view that included paradoxes / dubious structures, and these are not readily apparent to me.)
It's also rife with bad practices. Terrible naming choices consisting of arbitrarily-placed acronyms, bad word choices, and simply inconsistent naming (hash vs hsh vs hs vs h). The indentation is a mix of spaces and tabs. There's magic numbers galore, and variable re-use -- not just local scope, but public methods on objects as well. I've also seen countless assignments within conditionals, and these are apparently intentional! The reasoning: to ensure the code only runs with non-falsey values. While that would indeed work, an early return/next is much clearer, and reduces indentation. It's just. reading through this makes me cringe or literally throw my hands up in frustration and exasperation.
Honestly though, I know why the code is so terrible, and I understand:
The architect/sole dev was new to coding -- I have 5-7 times his current experience -- and the project scope expanded significantly and extremely quickly, and also broke all of its foundation rules. Non-developers also dictated architecture, creating further mess. It's the stuff of nightmares. Looking at what he was able to accomplish, though, I'm impressed. Horrified at the details, but impressed with the whole.
This project is the epitome of "I wrote it quickly and just made it work."
Fortunately, he and I both agree that a rewrite is in order. but at 76k lines (without styling or configuration), it's quite the undertaking.
------
Amusing: after running the codebase through `wc`, it apparently sums to half the word count of "War and Peace"15 -
Talked dev with my uncle today at the dinner table. Every other family member slowly backed away in boredom and confusion as we discussed spaces vs. tabs3
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IE can go fuck itself.
Today, the reason the some JS broke is because it couldn't handle tabs. Works fine in any other browser.
Replace all tabs with spaces and bam, everything works again.
😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡7 -
I started with Notepad++ (and continued like that for a while)
Then I tried jetbrains webstorm, I tried atom. I tried VS. They all have their cool stuff but I was never fully satisfied.
Now I tried brackets. I just opened a project I'm working on rn and started coding a little.
Half a hour passed and I still didn't notice that I had a light theme.
Yes. This is it. I'll stay with this editor. It just feels right. I just need to figure out how to use tabs not spaces...
(picture says just my opinion)
31 -
People fighting about spaces vs tabs and I'm here fighting about coding in light theme or dark theme.11
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Scientists debate on important stuff like when the world is gonna end, and climate change. However we debate on the really important stuff: spaces vs tabs.7
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1. Naming all variables with letters of the alphabets
2. Not indenting (screw tabs VS spaces, I could use anything here)
3. Putting all src files in one directory
4. Writing the entire code without using any functions
5. Writing code and asking me to fix linting
6. Asking why they should follow language style guidelines4 -
Read some books
Get a computer
Write some codes
Use Linux
Hate Microsoft
Argue Vim vs Emacs
Debate 4 spaces vs tabs
Use dark themes
Follow buzzwords..
Now repeat after me, "I am a programmer...."4 -
Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.
Give a man teh codez, and he eats for a day. Congrats, you fed a help vampire.
Teach a man teh codez, and you open up to him the wonderful world of tabs vs spaces, dependency hell, emacs vs vim, being everybody's personal tech support, Linux vs Windows, legacy code, stack overflow, language wars, terrible documentation, functional vs oop, and arguments about what the best indentation style is. Forget about eating, production's down.7 -
Tabs v Spaces...
camelCase v snake_case
'single' vs "double"
hyphen-vs_undescore
The point here is PICK ONE AND USE IT.9 -
I'm just C# boy, born and raised in a .Net world ... Today I started some stuff with JavaScript, downloaded the JavaScript standard extension for using in Vs code... It made me do things...it made indent each new line by 2 spaces! Not 4 or a tab but 2! And then what really took the fucking biscuit, it said I couldn't end my statements with semi colons! I need a strong cup of tea and a sit after that shit. How is that at all useful to anyone!? It just made it make less sense!!!!10
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Not usually a person to rant about spacing and conventions but this is great.
4 devs, all using IntelliJ. Now IntelliJ auto-changes tabs to spaces which is nice, and GitHub doesn’t really care as long as the spacing is consistent. Now here is the fun part: 2 devs have 4 spaces per tab, 1 has 3 spaces, 1 has 5 spaces.
GitHub merge conflicts everyWHERE.
And yes it isn’t the old 2 vs 4 spaces. It’s 3 vs 4 vs 5 somehow6 -
Hi fellow code indenters,
I am a tab indenter myself because each dev on the same project can decide how much the indentation is. Some prefer 4, some 2, some prefer both depending on language.
Now I already asked a few space indenters here why spaces. Because I never heard a good argument for using spaces instead of tabs. Each time I asked I didn't get an answer.
So this time once again: why would you use spaces over tabs for indentation?
I want to make a good decision and for that I need arguments for both.40 -
My friend is a 1st time programmer. When we learned about tabs vs spaces in our mandatory beginners c++ class, the friend said "what, you can use spaces?" and I said "yes, of course, like this!" and demonstrated it. The friends reply, without knowing about the controversy, made my day:
*silence*
"well, thats dumb"3 -
...and this photo from our latest conference, shows our developers having an interesting debate about tabs vs spaces.
3 -
in C I use {} for ifs even when they have a single line. for some reason, my C proffesor hated this. For him, this is the equivalent of Tabs vs Spaces.15
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Dear intern, if you really really have the urge to use fucking spaces for indentation because it let's you feel like being some Google hipster, then PLEASE AT LEAST REMOVE THE SPARE ONES WHEN YOU FUCKING COPY PASTE CODEBLOCKS!!!1!!1111!
I'm perfectly OK if people wanna use spaces if they use it in an OCD-proof manner.
Nah, let's be honest: Spaces are a filthy way to indent stuff. Tabs are in a lot ways superior and if an editor can't render tabs correctly, the editor is a piece of worm puke.2 -
I will leave it here
monday- tabs vs spaces
Tuesday- brackets indentation
wednesday- windows vs mac
Thursday- c# vs java
friday - windows vs linux
saturday- vi vs emacs
sunday- vs code vs intellij2 -
Literally tabs vs. spaces. The joke is everywhere, and the people taking stances have clearly never used find+replace.8
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Reading a Ray Wenderlich book to try give RxSwift a go. Book is well written and going well. But I’m grinding my teeth at the fact all the code samples use 2 space indentation. Despite the fact apples standard is 4 ... and you know tabs would let us decide.
I know it’s a small thing, but it’s really pissing me off3 -
I know I'm gonna catch heat here but if you insist on using vim or emacs on any OS that is in GUI mode just know I think you are mental... I get it you have shortcuts but so do sublime, atom or vs code. Plus intellisense.
Don't get me wrong I started with vim and have a special place in my heart but I know people only use it to beat their chests.
And just so everyone knows a little about me:
Spaces>tabs
Vim>emacs>nano
Linux>windows>macOS
I hate JavaScript
And mtn dew is a better drink than coke or Pepsi.20 -
So I'm reading up on the HomeAssistant documentation to prepare for submitting to their repo. I was really excited to find such a nice repo to contribute to, but i suddenly had to reconsider when i found this:
10 -
2017 and yet, here we are, still ripping up our clothes over tabs and spaces.
My bad if I missed something about this debate but I really don't get it.7 -
That moment you see an argument between two developers about tabs vs spaces tjat was suppose to be a discussion about the series sillicon valley1
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Just watched episode 3-6 of silicon valley, where Richard loses his girl over tabs vs spaces. Made me kind of mad.
How the fuck is tabs vs spaces still a struggle? Unless you're using fucking Notepad++ to code, your IDE will FUCKIN REPLACE TABS WITH SPACES! IF YOU INDENT WITH SOMETIMES THREE, SOMETIMES FOUR SPACES, THEN BURN IN HELL! JUST USE YOUR IDE WITH YOUR TAB KEY AND END THE WAR!2 -
So, a spaghetti legacy code, written by some dude that obviously hates his job, needs update and we argue about spaces vs tabs....4
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We've had tabs vs spaces, gif vs jif, but how about S Q L vs sequel? Which one do you prefer? I'm in camp sequel.12
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I never understood the ‚space vs tabs‘ war ...
Tabs can do everything that spaces can plus more:
* look the same as spaces, but its width is configurable (at least in a decent editor)
* the safe space (1 byte vs 3 or 4)
* you can decrease the intendation leven with one bsckspace keypress in every(!) editor.
So the winner can only be tabs? Why would I even limit myself with spaces?
I dont wanna start a flame war, just curious what you guys (especially the spaces lovers) think about it14 -
Ok so I'm taking a developer survey, and since this is the best community of devs I know I'm taking it here first. This is for research purposes attempting to draw parallels between thing such as favorite language and favorite editor, tabs vs spaces and years of development experience, etc.
If you would be so kind as to help me out I will post my findings here once I've collected enough data. Anyone that inputs a valid email address will also be kept in the loop.
Thanks! Here's the link!
https://goo.gl/forms/...
14 -
Whenever I clone a github repo, the first thing I do is to format the code from tabs to spaces.
Tried not to do it, but the itch is unbearable.4 -
I really don't understand why there's even a debate about tabs vs spaces. Why else would the spacebar be 4 times a wide as the tab key?!7
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tabs vs spaces
i hate it when i cant find where i used spaces instead of tabs. just a simple mistake and it doesnt work
me: *codes makefile in codenvy*
terminal: *** missing separator. Stop.
me: *rewrites code exactly the same way in Notepad++*
me: *copy paste code to codenvy*
terminal: *compiles whole project*
wow. just wow.6 -
Me 2 cents on python:
Cheers on python for enforcing indentation for the sake of readability.
Fuck devs for writing a fucking function in one line or 200char.
Also fuck type less one liners even more.4 -
We need a thread dedicated to just debating tabs vs spaces and light vs dark themes, every third post is about one of them!1
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For all of our differences Tabs Vs Spaces, Emacs Vs Vim. There are two things that drive us. Computers and free promotional merchandise.1
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I use spaces in vim/nano, I use tabs in my graphical IDE which translates it into spaces. I guess I'm on the spaces side, even though I don't really mind both. But seriously, why do people keep arguing about effing whitespaces...9
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Tabs vs Spaces.
Not because one of them is definitely better than the other, but because it's 2020, we have editorconfig and everybody should just use what he personally prefers.7 -
Regarding the never ending tabs vs spaces debate; who on earth over at GitHub thought 8 spaces was a good default value for tabs in code?4
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I used to love tabs and absolutely despise spaces, but a combination of using IntelliJ and company code indentation convention has converted me to the dark side #spacegang4
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I haven't chimed in on this spaces vs tabs war at all on this platform, mostly because I personally don't care and adapt to my work's/project's conventions, but I just have to put this out there now.
I am honestly so confused about the entire thing since seeing a lot of recent rants on the topic. I was originally conditioned to believe that the majority of devs in the world were FOR spaces over tabs. Thus, whenever I start a project, I default to spaces.
Contrary to that, it seems most devs here (or at least those who enjoy instigating some banter) actually prefer tabs. Now, I recently binged Silicon Valley and can't help but wonder if people around here are simply jumping on that band wagon for the sake of the joke.
Side note: I also thought Vim was more widely used over Emacs but Richard Hendricks asserts otherwise there too.
I know the main arguments for both sides - spaces yield code that looks the same in all editors while tabs produce smaller code. Anybody who argues that spaces are less efficient because you need to physically press the space bar 2/4/8/etc times is just retarded. If soft tabs weren't a thing, I don't think anybody would be on the side of spaces and for that reason I believe that episode in Silicon Valley was just trying to be overdramatized and push peoples' buttons.
All of that being said, I wonder if it's just a generational/field of development thing. Would it be wrong to propose that more older devs in the field of embedded and OS development (using C and the like) are in the spaces party while younger devs perhaps more into application and web dev (Javascript, C#, and shit) are all about tabs? I'm actually fresh out of university, but like I said my preference is spaces, though I don't really care.
I'm actually interested to find out what kind of environments breed these opposing mindsets so what do you guys think?2 -
I don't know what side of the argument I'm on for tabs vs spaces. I use tab but set it to be 4 spaces.4
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Since we're all doing unpopular opinions lately: tabs and spaces are not only interchangeable, but is most readable when mixed on one line.
Instead of 4 spaces or one tab, try 2 spaces, 1 tab, and another space for good measure!3 -
Spaces vs tabs has kind of become a non-argument for web tech and the former has won (at least in every place I've worked or observed in open source projects).
Although I don't really care (just stick to one for the same codebase) I don't get why spaces won. Given the argument is mostly about how we like to read code individually, and tab width can be configured per editor while space cannot, why did spaces win?9 -
I know this is utopic, but I've been thinking for a while now about starting an open source platform for figuring out the problems of our society and finding real world, applicable, open source solutions for them.
To give you some more details, the platform should have two interfaces:
- one for people involved in researching, compiling issues into smaller, concrete chunks that can be tackled in the real world, discuss and try to find workable solutions for the issues and so on
- one for the general public to search through the database of issues, become aware of the problems and follow progress on the issues that people started working on
Of course, anyone can join the platform, both as an observer (and have the ability to follow issues they find interesting) and/or contributor (and actually work with the community to make the world a better place in any way they can).
Each area of expertise would have some people that will manage the smaller communities that would build around issues, much like people already do in the open source community, managing teams to focus on the important thins for each issue. (I haven't found a solution for big egos getting in the way yet, but it would be nice if the people involved would focus on fixing stuff in stead of debating about tabs vs spaces, if you know what I mean).
The goal of this project would be to bring together as many people from all kind of fields to actually try to fix this broken society.
It would be even better if it attracted people with money and access to resources (one example off the top of my head being people like Elon Musk) that could help implement the solutions proposed by the community without expecting to gain profit off of it (profit is also acceptable if it is made in a considerate, fair and helpful way, but would not be promoted on the platform).
The whole thing would be voluntary work; no salary, no other commitment than the personal pledge that once someone chooses to tackle something, he/she will also see it trough (or at least do his/her best).
The platform would be something like a mix of real time communication, issue tracker, project management tool and publishing platform.
I don't yet have all the details for how it should all fit together, but if there is something that I would like to start, this is definitely it!
PS: I don't think I can ever do something like this by myself, and I don't really have the time to manage a community of developers to start work on it right now. But if you guys think something like this is something worth your time, I will make time and at least start on defining the architecture and try to turn this into a real project.
If enough people are interested, I will drop any other side projects and do my best to get this into the world!
Thank you for reading :)6 -
I really don't understand why tabs vs spaces is such a big issue. I mean does anyone actually use spaces? I mean I don't think ANY developer would use spaces when you have tabs!4
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Something with tabs vs spaces...
I forgot who won the argument tho, my colleagues don't even indent shit, lol3 -
VS Code, WTF is wrong with your tab stops?
I set to 2 and you still use 4.
I say use spaces for tabs and you still put tabs in my document.
Tab settings by doc type? Not existing or working.
Damn you!
Just work5 -
Am I the only madman writing C++ with 8 spaces per tab? (Converted to spaces, to be sure. What are we, savages?!)
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Which movie or TV show do you think has caused the most damage and confusion about how programming actually works?
For me it's Silicon Valley with their "Tabs VS Spaces" scene where the dev who advocates spaces actually hits the spacebar key 4 times manually.
(In reality no does that - everyone just hits the tab key and most Editors convert the tab into 2 or 4 spaces bars on your setting. In fact a vast majority of github repos use spaces - despite some of their devs now thinking "I use tabs")1 -
I'm usually on the tabs camp, because anyone can have their editor (not notepad) render them any way they want. I prefer showing them as 2 spaces. It just feels cleaner and more subtle than 4 😀2
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People who use spaces make more than people who use tabs. I've been doing it wrong :(
https://goo.gl/FSzv5z5 -
In the tabs vs spaces debate I'm on the tabs side of things, but I have no problems with spaces.
But if you indent your entire code with 1 space and then indent everything else with 3,5,7... etc. I will hunt and kill you.10 -
Why is there so much hatred for people who use spaces instead of tabs?
I use tabs out of habit but I don't understand why people have to fucking hate the ones who use spaces so much13 -
Am I the only one here who knows that in Stackoverflow you have to indent your code with 4 spaces, so you tab and you get pissed ?!
I think this is the first solid argument that spaces people have on this holy war5 -
About the ongoing battle of tabs vs spaces, there is an option in most text editors to convert tabs to spaces ( if you press tab it insert a certain number of spaces ). Use that and you will be fine.
Also if you are contributing to other projects which could be using tabs, there are plugins that will detect if the indentation is spaces or tabs and when you press tab automatically inserts spaces or tabs accordingly
1 -
I love most trends around js, because often they're thoroughly thought through (not always) and make things easier.. but why the fucking fuck do all the js coding standards use 2 SPACES. Now this isn't intended to be a tabs-vs-spaces rampage rant. But this decision against tabs is like saying yes to a 50ct pencil instead of 100 dollars.7
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Serious question here: why the discourse about spaces vs tabs? Hitting the tab key /once/ is just much more efficient than hitting the space bar /four times/, isn't it?9
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Which development standards and coding styles would you recommend in a development team? My colleague @jacoKotze and I are starting to get larger projects at work and 2 more developers soon (juniors with little to no experience), so we'll need some coherence soon.
Tabs v spaces is more of a joke, looking for opinions on other things please.12 -
In design they say it's all about the whitespace.
After reading all the discussions about tabs vs spaces, I think it also applies to programming... -
Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs (for indentation) (stackoverflow survey). What do you use?8
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