Yesterday, I shared some spicy takes. A few were particularly controversial—most notably, that I correct Gif the correct way (with a soft G)—but I also got a lot of emails asking me to elaborate on a few of them.
Today, I wanted to talk about how tabs are objectively better than spaces. This won’t take long.
Tabs let you define how big you want each indent to be, and spaces do not.
I used to think this way, at least when writing C++. But it’s objectively harder to do and convince other people to follow, especially if they can’t be bothered to change their environment to display tabs and spaces differently. It’s a losing battle so now I just do spaces when working with other people
When I talk about alignment it’s not about function arguments, but values, “=” signs and such. You simply cannot use tabs for that because alignment must be fixed and indentation independent:
CreateOrderRequest(
user,
productDetails => order.detail,
pricingCalculator =>DEFAULT_CALCULATOR,
order => order.internalNumber)
It does help with reducing thrashing between edits in git diffs. Or rather, opinionated autoformatters do, which is the only reason I bother with alignment.
Then you lose the benefit of tabs: you can’t adjust the tab width without destroying alignment. So you end up with a confusing mix of characters for no benefit.
You might not understand how to do it properly so here’s the idea:
Tabs will let you reach the indentation level of the current block, then from here, you’ll use spaces to align stuff property. Here’s an example, where >••• are tabs (I’m exaggerating alignment for the sake of the example) :
You’re confusing using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment with using tabs and spaces for indentation. This means each line starts with tabs. Next you optionally have spaces for alignment with previous lines. Then you have content (like code or comments). Because you never have a tab following a space the alignment is never destroyed by adjusting how wide a tabstop is.
Tabs for indent, spaces for alignment. This is the way, I can’t believe people are still fighting that ?
I used to think this way, at least when writing C++. But it’s objectively harder to do and convince other people to follow, especially if they can’t be bothered to change their environment to display tabs and spaces differently. It’s a losing battle so now I just do spaces when working with other people
Anything for indent (barely matters, as long as the editor forces it to stay consistent), and fuck alignment, just put things on a new line.
struct Ident arr = [ { .id = 0, .name = "Bob", .pubkey = "", .privkey = "" }, { .id = 1, .name = "Alice", .pubkey = "", .privkey = "" } ];Not like that, lol
Just saying, instead of this monstrosity
CreateOrderRequest(user, productDetails, pricingCalculator, order => order.internalNumber)Just use
CreateOrderRequest( user, ...Putting the first argument on a separate line.
Same if you have an
ifusing a bunch ofand(one condition per line, first one on a new line instead of same line as theif) and similar situations.When I talk about alignment it’s not about function arguments, but values, “=” signs and such. You simply cannot use tabs for that because alignment must be fixed and indentation independent:
CreateOrderRequest( user, productDetails => order.detail, pricingCalculator => DEFAULT_CALCULATOR, order => order.internalNumber)seconded on not aligning things. its the whole source of the problem in the first place and doesnt even serve a purpose
It does help with reducing thrashing between edits in git diffs. Or rather, opinionated autoformatters do, which is the only reason I bother with alignment.
Then you lose the benefit of tabs: you can’t adjust the tab width without destroying alignment. So you end up with a confusing mix of characters for no benefit.
Mixing them is the worst option.
You might not understand how to do it properly so here’s the idea:
Tabs will let you reach the indentation level of the current block, then from here, you’ll use spaces to align stuff property. Here’s an example, where
>•••are tabs (I’m exaggerating alignment for the sake of the example) :>•••if (condition1 == true >••• || condition2 != false) >•••{ >•••>•••struct ident people[] = [ >•••>•••>•••{ >•••>•••>•••>•••.name = "bob", >•••>•••>•••>•••.pubkey = "value1", >•••>•••>•••}, >•••>•••>•••{ >•••>•••>•••>•••.name = "alice", >•••>•••>•••>•••.pubkey = "value2", >•••>•••>•••} >•••>•••]; >•••>•••secureConnection(people[0].name, people[0].pubkey, >•••>••• people[1].name, people[1].pubkey, >•••>••• CRYPTO_ALGO_DEFAULT); >•••}As you can see, everything will stay correctly aligned as long as it’s within the same block.
You’re confusing using tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment with using tabs and spaces for indentation. This means each line starts with tabs. Next you optionally have spaces for alignment with previous lines. Then you have content (like code or comments). Because you never have a tab following a space the alignment is never destroyed by adjusting how wide a tabstop is.
I am not, it’s easy to find examples where tabs first then spaces breaks down.
That example is using tabs for both indentation and alignment. The article you linked even says not using tabs for alignment is a solution.